


Of Dilemmas and their Cost | Part II

by quills_at_dawn



Series: The Minutiae of Right [2]
Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Abuse, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Assassin's Creed: Rogue, Canon-Typical Violence, Dubious Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, Historical, M/M, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Rape/Non-con Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-02
Updated: 2017-07-29
Packaged: 2018-11-22 11:13:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 19
Words: 53,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11379048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quills_at_dawn/pseuds/quills_at_dawn
Summary: .“Did you really take that fort without a shot fired, Kenway? I had that jäger of yours recount the whole thing over luncheon yesterday and if he was telling the truth then it must have been the neatest thing done this age.”____________________________After all the revelations brought to light by Shay's desertion of the Brotherhood, Haytham knows he holds all the cards in his hands in. The question now: how will he play them?





	1. John | Conscientious Objector

**Author's Note:**

> So, I split this up into a Part I and a Part II to reset the tags and warnings but I've ended up with all the same ones for now because I didn't want to give to much away from the start - a tag spoiler is a terrible kind of spoiler. 
> 
> Speaking of spoilers, the first of the (apparently) much anticipated Haytham & Liam scenes is currently slated for chapter 4 (sorry, sorry, sorry!). 
> 
> If you want updates but only subscribed to Part I, you can either subscribe to the series (from the series page) or subscribe to Part II. 
> 
> Always happy to read comments and answer questions and since most of the chapters in Part II are in the planning stages, this is a good time to make suggestions!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Still angry with Haytham, John goes back on his surgery and realises that he also feels frustration at not being able to help Shay more, especially since Shay is just the kind of underprivileged omega he wants to help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No particular warnings, just a bit more world-building as we get deeper into the story.

****

artwork by [geral-lenix](https://geral-lenix.tumblr.com/)

* * *

 

**JOHN**

_Kenway House, New York, December 1755_

 

Breakfast at the Kenway house is usually a carefree affair but today it feels more like dinner and even the light of several candelabras can’t quite warm the weak winter sun filtering through the room’s many windows from behind a solidly uniform wall of old-wool-grey fog.

Kenway has Masters Gist and Weeks, a couple of officers and even a jäger at his end of the breakfast table and when I help myself to one last coddled egg it is in sight of the six regulars standing at attention who line the walls, alternating with the usual complement of footmen.

They’re planning some kind of raid on a small fort in the city that a gang is turning into a stronghold. Their end of the table is strewn with maps, diagrams, memorandums and lists, their half-full plates of food scattered about wherever there’s space. They look a likely enough bunch, save Kenway with his air of never having seen dust let alone mud, but all the medical supplies Kenway’s small army of stable boys and gardeners carried off from my surgery during the night will no doubt be needed when they return.

Catching Haytham’s eye, I stand and excuse myself. He nods, looking his usual affable self - you’d never guess that he’s had barely a couple of hours’ sleep and that his whole household is in upheaval.

More liveried footmen are picketed along the way to the great double staircase, all the same height and build - Haytham must buy them in bulk.

Barrington is still in Kenway’s room, drilling a company of maids and footmen in near total silence. He’s showing them how to lift the patient from the bed on the old sheet and lay out the fresh linen with minimal fuss. He sees me and dismisses the others as soon as they’ve completed the manoeuvre.

“Good. Back to your duties.”

As they all file out I take stock of the changes made while I was at breakfast. Furniture moved away or out, a camp bed set up on the far side of the bed, cabinets and tabletops loaded with my medical supplies. Kenway never does anything by halves and neither does Barrington. Barrington too looks just the same as usual and yet I know he was up all night, in case his master needed anything.

“There was no need to disarrange the master suite, Barrington, one of the guest rooms would have been perfectly adequate.”

“The master insisted Master Cormac be left here in the room with the best facilities.”

I’m sure he did.

“Master Cormac seems to have done a very neat job of charming the master of the house.”

“Master Kenway is very taken with him.”

Perching on the armchair nearest to the bed, I look my charge over. Not the smallest change in his condition. Half a dozen fresh, folded hand towels are stacked on the bedside table and beside them a single orange blossom in a rock crystal vase.

“He did quite a job on the rest of the household too, by the look of things.”

“He did, sir.”

This, delivered in Barrington’s lock-jawed near-drawl, sounds like a long-suffering and damning judgment.

Even with the bruising and lingering swelling, Cormac’s are looks that most alphas would be happy to claim as their own but even so, it’s hard to understand how he caused such chaos in Haytham’s well-ordered life.

“His temperature seems stable. Still a little high.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you wash him?”

“Not yet, sir.”

I look down at Cormac, still and pale as a wax figure.

“What do you think, Barrington?”

“A difficult case, sir.”

I’ve always enjoyed Barrington’s near-Spartan succinctness.

“When I get to my surgery I’ll check the _London Pharmacopeia_ for any additional treatments we might try.”

The inestimable compendium was on the list of things I asked to have brought over but it seems it wasn’t as much in evidence as I’d thought and they didn’t find it.

“We have a copy in the library, sir.”

Of course they do.

“I’ll ask one of the footmen to fetch it. And should I send for the coach, sir?”

“If you could. I’d like to leave in an hour.”

He soon returns, grave and attentive, and hands me the _Pharmacopeia_. The 1755 edition, five years more recent than my copy.

“Right. Let’s sponge him down and check his injuries. I’m worried about that shoulder.”

Barrington is the ideal assistant - quiet, efficient, and needs no direction - so we work in silence, getting Cormac cleaned up and checking for inflammation as we change all the bandages. I don’t like the look of of that bullet wound but we’ll give it until tonight.

Whenever Barrington helped me with Kenway’s occasional injuries before they were usually just cuts and scrapes and the aftercare of more serious but much older wounds - nothing that might have shown me the extent of his training, though Haytham does have a two-inch-long cut on one of his forearms arms that Barrington stitched up himself and that looks as neat as anything done at Guy’s*, where I trained.

Haytham once told me that Barrington had been batman to one of his guardian’s officer friends. The officer died in an attack while Barrington sustained a wound to his leg that has left him with a stiff limp - invalidating him out of the army. He spent the time of his long convalescence in training as a field nurse. I’ve known this for a while but in an abstract way, he’d never needed to push professionalism this far in my presence before. Cormac is in good hands.

When we’re finished, Barrington twitches the sheets.

“I’ll stay with him, sir.”

“There’s no need, he’s sleeping. You should rest while you can or ask somebody else to do it.”

“I think Master Kenway would be easier if I stayed.”

A slight knock at the door.

_Kenway._

He _cannot_ be kept away. Haytham lets himself in and crosses over to the bed, leaning over to brush back a strand of hair while Barrington slips out of the room.

“Thank you for staying, John.”

“It isn’t for your sake.”

He brushes his fingertips over Cormac’s hair again, which irritates me.

“You do realise none of this is real, don’t you, Haytham? He’s in your hands entirely, you can’t believe anything he says or does. He lied about his condition because he thought you would send him back if you found you could not use him in the way you intended.”

“I know.”

“We could transfer him to my surgery, to neutral ground.”

“He wouldn’t be safe there, and neither would you, John. I’m sorry.”

He finally straightens, moving away from Cormac.

He’s about to speak when there’s a knock at the door.

“The coach is ready, Dr Meadows.”

Soon I’m back in my surgery, packing up more books and supplies to send back to Kenway House, wondering at what Haytham said, what he didn’t have a chance to say, and wondering why I agreed to stay.

Whatever the reason, I did agreed and Shay Cormac is my patient now and, gentleman’s agreement or not, I’m not at all convinced that any amount of expensive bedding and easy access to water can make up for his remaining and perhaps waking in his captor’s home. But I also know my urge to take him away is largely informed by my anger at Haytham’s behaviour, which flies in the face of everything we’ve worked towards and the very basis of our friendship.

My assistant and my three other helpers soon arrive, round-eyed at seeing the carriage still being loaded my liveried footmen. As they get to work tidying and wiping down the surfaces and setting out instruments, milling around between the tables, shabby chairs, and capacious cabinets. I have a small laboratory in the back where I make up prescriptions and my bedroom and bathroom are just above, on the first floor.

I’ve always liked this place, cozy and unpretentious with its low ceiling beams and sturdy furniture, perfect in that it helped counterbalance my image as a fancy London doctor, an alpha doctor. People came in, cautious, and I would see a crease of worry come over their faces as soon as I spoke, as if every carefully enunciated word would add another shilling or two to the price. Only in the last six months has my clientele become more regular.

“Sir? The, uh… the people outside ask if we need anything before they go.”

“Tell them we have all we need and to thank their master.”

The first patient comes in - a fall from a ladder while beating the snow off a low roof resulting in a broken wrist, the right wrist. A compound fracture, painful and delicate to set properly if the patient insists on using that hand before the six weeks necessary for it to full heal have passed.

As the trickle of patients grows, the work it brings blows away all thoughts of Kenway House’s tall ceilings and small army of competent household staff until one of my regular patients arrives. Conventionally good-looking, willowy and pale - a much prized sort of omega - married to an odious shopkeeper who keeps his mate in relative comfort, for this part of town, but who has his heart set on having at least two sons, preferably three. And so, each month, as regular as clockwork, that halfwit tradesman breeds his poor mate every night for a week, hoping they’ll conceive - despite my repeated warnings that it does no good and that rough handling in the early stages of pregnancy often causes miscarriage in omegas**. All to no avail since the fool still swears by this method, which his mother advised and can boast the dubious success of having brought about his own birth.

“The usual?”

A pained look and a nod.

And so this poor creature comes here nearly every other month, after yet another miscarriage.

He would not leave his husband, not even after all this. He wants children too and excuses his partner’s abuse on the basis that any mistake made is made in good faith. And a certain amount of guilt too since blame in these matters always rests with the omega. He considers himself lucky to be married at all since most men of less than ample means rarely choose omegas. After all, omegas are notoriously infertile, more likely to miscarry, and cannot suckle their young - serious disadvantages, especially for families of modest means who cannot afford a wet nurse and in which the wife is expected to work, in the home at least, right up until she reaches full term.

But there’s no accounting for taste and some men prefer omegas.

That said, shopkeepers and banker’s clerks ought never to be allowed to wed omegas. I’ve never met one that didn’t, on some base level, think of _his omega_ as a kind of status symbol, the mark of what he can afford, a frivolity. Your average farmer with solid knowledge of animal husbandry makes a far better match and is far more likely to successfully start a family with an omega. Perhaps they understand the mechanics of reproduction better, perhaps their solid common sense keeps them from believing the inane, or perhaps it’s simply that they understand the pace of nature better. And given the amount of work a farm generates, only the deepest and sincerest feelings can induce a farmhand to choose a mate who may spends months at a time unable to help.

As for formal education in the matter, neither farmers or shopkeepers have any. In fact, Haytham Kenway is one of just a handful of non-medical men I know who are in any way informed on the subject. Not just theoretical knowledge either but practical experience too, gained, no doubt, from working so closely with his omega subordinates - Jack Weeks, who I know quite well, and that Charles Lee I’ve heard so much about but have only met once. Very different creature. One so little an omega that he successfully passes himself off as a beta, the other the most obvious type of omega - two, sometimes even three, days of the intensest heat that leave him unable to work and nervous in the presence of others, especially alphas, a healthy build and even that attentive character so appreciated in women and omegas.

Omegas born into wealthy families, like Charles Lee was, often marry into another wealthy family in which wives are not expected to work or nurse their young. As for the others… the most attractive sometimes make unexpectedly brilliant matches (if a miserable life with an idiot shopkeep can be termed ‘brilliant’), most wash up in the same demimonde as failed governesses, spinsters of straightened means, and worse. Some of the better-looking ones find employment as footmen and valets - a convenient and discreet arrangement for men who want the best of both worlds. I’ll have a closer look at Kenway’s footmen tonight.

I may have failed them, the way I’ve failed this Shay Cormac.

I’d always felt that the underprivileged should receive the same level of treatment as the privileged and that if all it took was for one doctor to live in a little less luxury than he otherwise might then that was something I was prepared to undertake - and so I came away to the colonies where I felt there must be more need than in England. And there is, I was not wrong about that. Even the level of care on the _Providence_ left much to be desired - it was on a comment to that effect that we started our acquaintance.

I’ve used my practice to consult and treat, never undertaking anything more serious than resetting breaks, stitching up cuts, tending burns, and variation of accidental, mostly domestic injuries - even though I showed promise in surgery at school. I consoled myself with the notion that it was appropriate for a man so few years out of medical school to start with everyday cares and that in any case, if what people needed were draughts to ease coughs and toothache, then the most useful thing I could do was provide them.

But after more than a year here in New YorkI find myself forced to face my surgery’s incapacity to take on even just one in-patient. Forced too to accept that independent from what that might mean for my surgery’s reputation, _I_ ’m frustrated by it.

Even if Cormac’s situation had been less desperate - if he’d been, perhaps, only concussed, or had only had broken bones, or just the pneumonia - I _still_ could have done nothing more than recommend rest, bandage his chest, dose him then send him off to find his own way back to whatever noisy, ill-suited and likely cold place he came from.

My assistant smiles at me as he finishes washing our small collection of scalpels and starts drying them carefully. He’s a good lad, willing and quick, but he doesn’t yet have Barrington’s training or his experience and he may never acquire the exquisite sense of discipline Barrington seems to infect his subordinates with. Barrington has a finer timepiece than any I’ve owned by which to measure Cormac’s pulse, he can judge a fever to within a degree without the aid of a thermometer, and he doesn’t have to worry about preparing his meals, keeping his clothes in order, or menial chores such as changing the bedding or keeping boiling water on hand, nor about how many logs he’s throwing on the fire. Objectively, it is better for Shay Cormac to be in Kenway’s house being looked after by his butler, than he would be here in my surgery in the care of a surgeon.

No, I am deeply dissatisfied with myself and what I’ve achieved here. What if one of the many injuries I saw to had required an amputation? I could have carried it out easily enough but what then? Patients cannot be moved for hours even days after. Where would I have put mine? In chair in a quiet corner? Upstairs in the only bed on the premises - _my_ bed?

My offer - threat? - to take Shay Cormac away and bring him here was largely an empty one. I would have had to rely on Haytham’s carriage to transport him, on his men to carry Cormac in and out of it, and would have had to borrow a plethora of things from his house - starting with a mattress and ending with a spare chamberpot.

My fees here have always been reasonable, a fair balance between the value of my services and what my patients can afford, and I always thought that I alone bore the consequences. I don’t mind. Even after rent, my modest personal needs are met and I’ve invested in my surgery and made improvements to it, but not on the scale I now see I should have done. I’ve not put myself in a position to really help those I wish to help. Even if Shay Cormac had come to me in different circumstances, I could not have offered him shelter or protection from a Haytham Kenway. And yet that is clearly what I must strive to do - it has _always_ been my aim.

I’ve resisted Haytham’s offers for help - in the form not just of loans but also more intangibly as introductions and recommendations to his no doubt exalted acquaintances - but now that I find myself faced with my surgery’s incapacity to take on just one in-patient, I wonder if I haven’t paid too high a price for delicacy and independence and whether in injuring myself I haven’t also injured those who depend on me.

Has this move to the colonies been nothing but a wasted opportunity?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Guy’s: Guy’s Hospital, in Central London  
> **For anyone interested in the anatomical side of things, I think what’s going on here is that omegas don’t have a strong cervix, the way women do, so there’s less protection for the embryo and less support during pregnancy. No heavy lifting for pregnant omegas.


	2. Haytham | The Crib

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Shay, Haytham has a strong hand to play against Achilles and he now sets about doing just that, over a game of cribbage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No particular warnings in this chapter. 
> 
> The chapter title is a cribbage term - After a hand is dealt, each player discards two cards from their hand into the 'crib', which the dealer later plays as a second hand. 
> 
> Sir Charles Hardy - incumbent governor of New York (in office Jan 1755-present).  
> James DeLancey - lieutenant governor (in office 1753-1755), now Chief Justice  
> George Clinton - governor of New York (in office 1741-1753)

* * *

****_One for his nob,_

_two for his heels._

\- Cribbage expressions -

* * *

**HAYTHAM**

_Fort George, New York, December 1755_

 

As we finish our hand, Sir Charles moves his aftermost peg forward five holes on the cribbage board.

“Did you really take that fort without a shot fired, Kenway? I had that jäger of yours recount the whole thing over luncheon yesterday and if he was telling the truth then it must have been the neatest thing done this age.”

He deals out a new hand and we pick up our respective cards, six each.

“Oh, it was almost embarrassing. There were far fewer of those thugs than we’d anticipated and there seemed to be some confusion among them as to who was in charge, with the result that nobody was. The watchword Master Cormac gave us was accepted so one of the subalterns and three regulars were able to slip in unchallenged and they disabled a handful of men before we launched our attack. And most of the ship’s crew had no notion of putting up a fight, let alone attacking.”

Sir Charles chuckles and discards two of his cards before I follow suit, dropping a four of diamonds and a jack of hearts.

“How many of them did you round up?”

“Nineteen. Most of the crew I left there.”

“All the same, I’m not sure it was necessary for you to risk going yourself.”

“In the event, there was absolutely no danger. No, no, the snow was a challenge but everything else was disappointing. I even wore boots and sensible clothing when really I could have gone as I am now - I never even snagged a hedge.”

Sir Charles smiles, lifting his gaze from his cards a moment to meet mine.

“I forget you’ve been a soldier. I suppose neither of us look like fighting men just now.”

I return his smile and we turn our attention back to our game.

Just days after the memorable night of Shay and O’Brien’s capture, I’m back at Government House for another dinner, though, unlike the last, this one is more informal, one of the many such dinners the governor continually invites his officers and working connections to - army, navy and political - to ensure good relations between them all. A comfortable dinner among men in a bachelor household, Sir Charles being a widower at the age of just forty. Since dinner finished over an hour ago, we all settled down in twos and threes to drinks and cards or quiet talks in corners and I expect that in the next hour or so people will slowly start leaving.

We score our hands and this time Sir Charles has raked together twenty points. We’re playing in a desultory fashion. We’ve played together before and while I’m a good player, Sir Charles is a devoted one. The beautiful little brass cribbage board and whalebone pegs we’re using are the personal set he takes everywhere with him in a neat ebony box inlaid with ivory that also holds a deck of cards.

I deal out the next hand.

“So the boy’s information was sound?”

“So far.”

“Do you believe he is who he says he is?”

“I do. I took the logbook from the ship and while I haven’t had a chance to study it, the writing in it matches a sample I have of his. If it’s true then the man you’re still holding for me is his first mate. I’ll interrogate him in a day or so, I may be able to trick him into a confession or confirmation.”

Government House stands in the middle of the southern barracks, near the arsenal. On windy nights like tonight you can hear the breakers crash then plummet over the battery which is being fortified with additional guns in preparation for war.

Liam O’Brien is still locked in his cell, not five hundred yards from this card table.

“What will you do with the ship? Unfortunately I cannot buy her into the service - she’s undersized for a ship of the line and I’ve been warned not to be too prodigal in my spending unless it be for guns or frigates. If you decide to convert her into a merchant vessel, we’ll buy the guns. I suppose she carries eighteen and twelve-pounders?”

“I couldn’t say. Master Cormac told me the master is trustworthy but I haven’t had a chance to sit down with him yet. I thought I’d start by selling off the cargo and using the proceeds to pay off the crew. Until I settle on what to do with her.”

“Is the purser trustworthy?”

“I don’t know.”

We pause a moment as a footman bows and exchanges our candelabra for another with fresh-lit candles.

“Listen, Kenway. You know James Cook, don’t you? I’ll send him to you - he can advise you on the crew and the cargo, as well as start deciphering that logbook. It shouldn’t take long for him to confirm any engagements with our ships.”

“You are most generous, Sir Charles, thank you.”

We score our hands and this time I’m ahead by three points.

“I’d thought of quartering the crew at the Fort, unless you want it.”

“A fortified structure with its own berth? Of course I do. But I’m told it needs extensive repairs and I couldn’t justify the cost.” 

Another footman appears and mutely offers to refill our glasses.

The wine we had with dinner has already softened Sir Charles’ usually grave expression and ruddied the usually pale cheeks. All the same, his broad, square-jowled face retains its determined lines in the brows and the line of his mouth.

“I’ve had word from my contacts in Saint Domingue, they say the French forces in the area are being resupplied by ships leaving from this coast.”

“Quebec?”

“Yes, but not just there.”

We pause in our game, stand and bow, as two guests approach to take their leave, the governor exchanging a few pleasantries with them.

“It seems they’ve come to agreements for the sale of provisions with some of the larger Irish businesses, even in New York itself.”

“I see. “Do you have names?”

“My people are compiling a list.”

“Well. There isn’t much we can do yet. It may be lacking in morality but there’s nothing illegal in it. We could ask DeLancey to lean on them.”

“That was my thought, though I wonder if he’s not too closely connected with the notables of this city - he’s a born New Yorker, after all, his ties here are longstanding and run deep. It might be difficult for him to ask them to curb their interests when, as you say, none of this is illegal yet. However, it can’t hurt to try. His house is just a stone’s throw from mine, I’ll have a word with him.”

“As soon as war _is_ declared, however, that must be one of the first things we put a stop to. By the way, how are the works on your home coming? I hope to be invited soon. Several ladies of our acquaintance have made me promise, several times, to take particular note of wall colours and furnishings.”

As I can well imagine. The radical renovation and modernisation of my already famous villa has been the subject of conjecture and rumour ever since works on it started, particularly among the most fashionable society ladies, eager to see the designs of the freshest London drawing-rooms reproduced here on more than paper and already frustrated by the knowledge that propriety bars them from bachelor households such as my own, forcing them to seek second-hand accounts from their male acquaintances. 

“You shall be the first to see it, Sir Charles. And your works here?”

“Advancing, though I’m more anxious about the battery and fortifying the arsenal than I am about the House. You know the renovations were supposed to start in ’47? The money was there but since Clinton and Delancey had their own places there was never an urgent need. I suppose my need is urgent now but all the same… I expect the next governor will have his own residence again. I tell you, Kenway, I don’t think I’m cut out for politics.”

“Loudoun…?”

His nostrils flare with the breath of his sigh.

“That and I miss being surrounded by wood and the sea. I must tell you, Kenway, I’m going to write to Whitehall recommending you replace me here when my tenure ends. Will Delancey fight you on this?”

“He has told Whitehall he supports me, though he hasn’t made that support public yet…”

“Do you think he wants it for himself?”

“I think he would accept if it were offered to him. But he had a hard time of it from the start. His appointment was delayed by some five or six years by the previous governor, then as governor DeLancey advised Braddock and was made to shoulder some of the blame for that failure, then there was the business with William Johnson and the Albany Congress…”

“Heavens! Though now you tell me I recollect something of the story. What was it all about?”

“Money. As if they were being asked to pay out of their own pockets. And politics too. The Zenger affair had to do with it but broadly Clinton found DeLancey and his fellow New Yorkers a little too liberal for his tastes and he delayed DeLancey’s appointment by some five or six years over a spurious dispute about pay, if memory serves. Meanwhile, Clinton made Johnson New York’s agent to the Iroquois, replacing the Albany Indian Commissioner, who I understand was a family connection of DeLancey’s. When it came to reimbursing Johnson’s military expenditures during King George’s war, DeLancey and his faction blocked the motion in retaliation, which in turn infuriated Johnson who resigned his post.”

The final three guests make motions to signal their departure and when we’ve seen them off the governor and I settle back in our chairs but abandon any pretence at playing cards.

“This was in ’51, then in ’53 the Mohawksent a delegation to Governor Clinton claiming the Covenant Chain had been broken and could only be mended if Johnson was reinstated. Orders came from Whitehall that the Albany Congress be held to discuss the Covenant - by then it was clear to those of sense in government that the border skirmishes here were threatening to turn to war. DeLancey became governor and was forced to be co-delegate for New York with Johnson. To make matters worse, Whitehall thought the thing so mismanaged that they’ve taken the responsibility for matters relating to the native populations away from the colonies and my sources tell me they’ll be handed back to Johnson, likely within the year. It might not have mattered as much in peacetime but when war comes we will need our native allies - or, at the very least, we will need them to not go over to the enemy.”

“William Johnson is a close friend of yours, I believe?”

So he is and though he’s not a vengeful man, he took a great deal of joy from the news of DeLancey’s replacement as governor. And in truth, I’m glad of it too. I have a solid working relationship with James DeLancey but it is nothing like the immediate liking and meeting of minds I had with Sir Charles whose quiet and pondered ways so remind me of Monro’s and are so perfectly suited to tempering my own occasional flights of impulse.

“I have his ear and he has mine, yes. His relations with DeLancey have never really mended which I think DeLancey’s position as governor would be untenable once Johnson is reinstated. The accusation from the Mohawk coming while he and Clinton were squabbling over the governorship was a terrible blow and your nomination really says all that needs to be said about the opinion Whitehall has of him. He’s a politician, not a military man, and perhaps not the right man for the times. He claims he’s satisfied being Chief Justice and has important reforms he wants to push through. I can’t help feeling that might be a better role for him.”

“Are these reforms important enough for him to save face?”

“I think they are and will become even more so after the war. Many are based on ideas that came out of the Congress, so it wasn’t all bad.”

“Franklin’s ideas?”

“Yes, and since you so generously propose to endorse my bid for governor, I should tell you that I wholeheartedly subscribe to them. I’ve told DeLancey so and he knows of my close friendship with Franklin.”

“I’d like to meet Benjamin Franklin socially, if it can be arranged.”

“It will be the very next time he’s in New York, which ought to be soon. He assured me in a recent letter that he’d present his wishes for the New Year in person.”

“Do you need me to encourage DeLancey?”

“I very much hope that he will see his way to making his support of me a little more vocal without either of us having to force his hand. It may not matter while the French are our enemy but there may come a point when, if I’m seen as having ousted a colonial governor, I may find myself in a delicate position.”

The governor picks up the pack of cards and raps them into order on the tabletop a couple of times.

“Very well, I’ll leave things as they are for now. You know, Kenway, I don’t think I’m of meaner intellect than most but it will take a a mind with the keenest sense of politics to make a success of this place. You can be assured of my fullest support.”

Soon I’m in my coach, heading back home in the dark, the street lamps only shedding enough light for me to see that a sparse but steady snowfall has started up.

Another successful evening.

Was it really only two nights ago that Shay and I travelled this road together?

At the time I was still reeling from the surprise of O’Brien’s capture and the possibilities it offered. Now I know that even if without Liam O’Brien I could still force Achilles to accept the truce I want.

Should I have O’Brien killed? It would be the logical choice and the one safest for me. And yet I know that Shay would have asked me to spare him and I dread to think of him waken got the news of his Brother’s death - essentially by my hand.

No, besides, if I use O’Brien as a pawn as intended, I can keep everything else a secret. The manuscript especially. If Achilles discovers I have it, no truce or threat will prevent him from trying to retrieve it. And while I’ve given up on finding the storeroom or any other precursor Temple, I know others in the Order have not and I’m worried certain members might not be above stealing from a fellow Grand Master - what does treason matter in the face of the miraculous powers the Pieces of Eden are said to possess?

No, I may tell Monro and ask for his advice and help but no one else.

I’m not a superstitious man and even my belief in the Father of Understanding is more about an ideal than a real being. However, ever since I broke with Reginald and decided to focus all my energies into applying the Templars’ principles in the colonies to bring forth Order and Prosperity, I’ve had the slow and sure sense that after the initial failures I faced in the colonies things are finally coming together.

What I told Shay is true, I did all I could to avoid war. But war has brought me Sir Charles, more useful to me than Clinton, DeLancey and even Loudoun combined. War underscores the importance and relevance of may of my collaborators - Johnson, soon to be promoted to a position created for him, Charles and Monro and the other military men. Even Church and Hickey are both dealmakers who will likely thrive in the shadow and chaos of gunpowder and smoke.

My efforts have earned me enough recognition that I may achieve the position of governor I aspired to a full five years before I’d expected to ever have a chance at it.

And yet the most important person in all this is not Sir Charles or William Johnson or King George or even me.

Back home, I make my way up to my room where Shay still lies unmoving and unchanging and I sit by him and stroke his hair.

Shay is the lynchpin of all of this. 

All my plans, the ship, the fort, the Rite, my governorship - they all depend on Shay.

For a moment, I have the cold-wet certainty that Shay _must_ wake up.

He must. Why would all things come together in this way if they’re simply to be scattered again by Shay’s absence?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cribbage is a card game in which players combine the cards in their hand to make 15 (something between poker and blackjack) - a small pegboard is used to keep score (because nothing gets done in Assassin's Creed unless you play a board game). 
> 
> Government House would have been in the fortified area at the southern tip of the New York map.  
> James Delancey had a townhouse and a country house/farm that was off the Bowery, near East Village - close to Hope's mansion (which I've given to Haytham and renamed Kenway House). 
> 
> Master: the master on a ship is its navigator. As it happens, Ubisoft has Captain Cook as the captain of HMS Pembroke but he was actually her master. 
> 
> Sir Charles Hardy: When I was in the early stages of outlining, it became obvious to me that the governor would be a recurring character and that as such he would need a name. Too lazy to make one up, I decided it'd be easier to look up the name of the real governor at the time - the fact that he really was a Royal Navy captain is such a beautiful coincidence I'm surprised it didn't make it into the game (though I'd have to go back and read all the letters to check it didn't).
> 
> Covenant Chain: The Covenant Chain was a series of alliances and treaties developed during the seventeenth century, primarily between the Iroquois Confederacy (Haudenosaunee) and the British colonies of North America, with other Indian tribes added.(Thank you, wikipedia)
> 
> For people wondering where the Shay/Haytham fic they thought they were reading has disappeared to, I promise it's coming back!


	3. John | Reason Doesn't Enter Into It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The strain of having an invalid in the house starts to tell on the occupants of Kenway House, forcing certain things to come out into the open.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, the last of the setup chapters in which the height of action is playing cards or having tea (for now). I want Haytham to have a meaningful role but I also feel that being Grand Master involves a lot of talking and getting people to do things so... 
> 
> Happy 4th of July, Connor! (I guess? Not sure Haytham and Shay would think it anything to celebrate).

**JOHN**

_Kenway House, New York, December 1755_

 

Looking up from a hefty tome, I close my eyes, lean back and stretch until all the bones in my back pop.

Kenway’s library is remarkable not only for the quality of its reference texts but also for the astonishing number of recent publications from the world over - contributions from other branches of the organisation he’s part of - and which constitute an unfathomable fund of knowledge. I’ve spent every free moment consulting his books and taking notes.

I’ve a plethora of treatments to try if Cormac ever regains consciousness.

Even without a fire, the library is warm, and quiet - Kenway must have given instructions that I not be disturbed. He’s also asked me for a list of recommendations to expand his medical selection but I haven’t taken him up on that yet. I see it for the generous offer it is and already feel indebted to him.

Kenway returned from his raid the other night without a scratch on him. We had a drink to celebrate and after what felt like days of incessant pressure I finally agreed to his recommending me to his wealthy friends, though only if Cormac recovers. In truth, I think in my heart I’d already decided the morning after first seeing Cormac, but it took my pride a few days longer to make its peace with it.

Worse still, I can feel myself settling into the comfort of this house, the convenience of returning here after a hard day’s work - one I can now afford to lengthen since I no longer have to worry about procuring or preparing my own food, of seeing to the laying out and cleaning of my clothing and bedding. I can study here in the library at a table I didn’t have to clear of plates or instruments, from a selection of medical books that makes mine look like that of afirst-year medical student. And in the back of my mind, the thought that if I stayed, as Haytham has asked me to, my quarters above the surgery could be repurposed to accommodate a few beds.

A long, low creak heralds Barrington’s appearance.

“I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

“It’s all right, Barrington, I was just resting my eyes.”

Wordlessly, he gathers two candlesticks from neighbouring desks and busies himself setting them up for me.

I’ve never witnessed a change in Lane Barrington’s expression but now we’ve spent hours and hours together caring for Cormac I can sense he is still here for a reason.

“What is it tonight? Still the _Commentaries*_?”

“He has finished those, sir. However, he still feels sure the Roman Republic and Empire will be of interest to Master Cormac so he has started Montesquieu’s _Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline_.”

“I see.”

Haytham started by reading out the day’s most interesting dispatches, then he moved onto newspaper articles, and now centuries-old memoirs. All in the vague hope that Cormac can somehow hear him - well, _my_ vague hope, Haytham seems dead certain.

Meanwhile, Barrington is hovering, in the most distinguished possible way, lighting each candle before settling it into a sconce with the sort of gravity reserved for coronations.

“Master Kenway met with a silversmith here today.”

“Oh?”

“He plans to have some jewels reset - into pins, buttons, and so on.”

“For… Shay Cormac?”

“That’s right, sir.”

“I see… Is he thinking of having anything else made for Master Cormac?”

“The tailor was here yesterday morning, they went over an order for clothes and a full set of linen, a dozen of everything.”

“I see.”

He’s finished with the candles and my workspace is a burning glow in the vast, hanging gloom of the library.

Moving to the edge of the nimbus of light, Barrington starts checking the shelves for dust that isn’t there.

“Do you think such behaviour is reasonable, sir?”

“I don’t think reason enters into it, Barrington. I don’t need to tell you that being responsible for another’s life is a heavy burden. I expect this is his way of coping.”

Possibly also a way of mitigating his guilt, a penance of sorts, trading his waking hours for Shay Cormac’s lost ones. My opinion of Kenway is still a little dented by this whole affair but I do believe his remorse is sincere - I’ve seen it in the way he watches Cormac sleep sometimes, deep and concentrated.

“Would it help him cope, sir?”

No, none of this will help him if Cormac dies.

Haytham was present once when Barrington and I were rewrapping the chest bandages and he saw the marks on Cormac’s abdomen, the evidence of what is necessary to keep his body alive. Barrington and I never spoke of it but neither of us has allowed him into the room while even the simplest procedure is ongoing and we haven’t told him, for instance, that we had to cut open the bullet wound again to clean it when it became infected. I think, perhaps, until that moment, the possibility of Cormac not surviving had never really reached Haytham.

“Has he ever behaved this way before?”

“No, sir.”

“Forgive me - not even with…?”

“No, sir.”

In the space of his hesitation the air becomes so thick and heavy I think even the invisible dust he’s just swiped stands stock still.

“Master Kenway is sometimes impulsive, but never…”

_Unpredictable. Irrational. Incomprehensible._

Barrington can’t quite seem to find a word that is accurate but not treasonous but I understand him well enough.

Haytham himself once mentioned his short-lived relationship with a native woman soon after he arrived in the colonies but I know none of the details, only that he can speak of her with perfect equanimity. Whatever his feelings for Shay Cormac, they cannot be characterised as either reasonable or rational.

“What is Cormac like, Barrington? I didn’t have enough time to form an impression.”

Traversing over to Kenway’s large writing desk, now cloaked in darkness, he displaces a few things, out of my sight.

“I’m not sure I had time to either, sir. But Master Kenway and he have an understanding and it… it seems to have worked very well for them.”

Ah yes, their _understanding._ Kenway has tried to explain it to me but it’s all made up of ineffable things, with that infamous deal on the one hand and the way it was kept to to the satisfaction of both parties on the other. Kenway told me Cormac confessed to running away from his intended, an abusive alpha, and I find myself unable to decide if I believe him or not. If it’s true, well, that only confirms my concern that Cormac is conditioned to submitting to abuse and trying to ingratiate himself to avoid the worst excesses of violence. And if it isn’t true, well…

“So I’ve heard.”

I suppose I can’t quite keep all condemnation out of my voice and Barrington glances at me and returns with quills, an ink pot and a fresh stack of paper on a tray.

“Master Kenway’s still a little worn from his trip to Europe and the death of his mentor. ”

Haytham did mention that and accepted my condolences with a curt nod and a tight smile, seeming saddened, yes, but not overwhelmed. I can believe he’s grieving more than he shows but despite our best efforts, Cormac is losing weight and wasting away with each passing day so I’m having trouble diving my sympathies between them.

“Sir… What do you think Master Cormac’s chances are?”

Barrington is rearranging my entire workspace, methodically replacing the quills, the ink pot in the inkstand, replenishing the supply of writing paper, all this without disarranging anything of real importance.

He’s used to doing this, for Haytham. Without knowing the particulars, I do know that Barrington has been with Kenway for years, as valet and now as butler - though that title doesn’t quite convey how completely he dominates the running of this household, which Haytham seems to have left in his hands, lock, stock and barrel.

“You know what they are, Barrington.”

No doubt he’s an exceptional butler but he would have made a respectable medical man too - he remembers everything, judges with clinical detachment and acts confidently and precisely. An assistant of his calibre would nearly double my little surgery’s capabilities. This is what it means to be wealthy - to have a man who would find his place in any surgery or hospital as the manager of one’s household. There is no injury of Haytham’s that I’ve tended to that Barrington couldn’t have seen to himself, making it clearer than ever that he only asked me to in friendship.

“Master Kenway might not fully understand them.”

That or he’s unwilling to accept them. If Cormac dies there will be no changing Kenway’s sense that he could have saved him. Nor should there be. He could - _should_ \- have acted sooner and didn’t, and why? Because his reason was obnubilated by lust. No, Haytham is still my friend and I see that he’s upset, but I still can’t bring myself to forgive him, not just for what he did to Shay Cormac, but also for shattering my image of him.

Barrington picks up the tray of discarded supplies and moves away.

As he turns away from me, his face is caught in half-light and as the shadows deepen its lines all the weariness and worry they hold suddenly become visible.

In that moment, I feel a deep rush of sympathy for him.

His expression may be as distant and impenetrable as ever but his behaviour is aberrant. What strain must he be under to act this way? His concern for the person who matters most to him in the world driving him to me despite my unconcealed disapproval, because this time he cannot confide his worries to the one person he has ever confided in, whose secrets and interests he has so loyally protected for so long.

“I’ll go and talk with him, Barrington. Leave it with me.”

He nods, still veiled in shadow.

“Shall I have some tea sent in, sir?”

“Send it up, for two. And not tea. Something that will help him sleep. Cocoa or camomile with honey.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

After quickly rearranging my notes and putting markers in the books, I stack everything in a corner of the desk and slowly make my way upstairs, collecting my thoughts.

Just as I expect, Haytham is sitting by the beside, though he moves away from Cormac when I step in - he doesn’t have to, this is his house, but he knows I disapprove of him touching Cormac while he’s unconscious like this. 

I check Cormac’s vitals - no change, still a simmering fever - and motion Haytham to join me by the fire.

“Barrington is sending up bedtime drinks. You should ask him to get more rest.”

Haytham smiles thinly.

“I have but in the two decades we’ve known each other he’s never let my opinion prime over his in this sort of matter.”

More idle talk until Barrington and a footman arrive with the camomile. Wordlessly, Barrington checks on Cormac before leaving.

“Barrington’s very diligent in his duties.”

We help ourselves to a cup each but Haytham holds his and simply stares at it in disinterest.

“He’s always taken great care of the things that are important to me.”

“Is Shay Cormac really important to you?”

“Very. You may not trust my personal motives but perhaps you’ll more readily believe I have a professional interest in Shay. His skills and experience make him immensely valuable.”

“What skills?”

Haytham hesitates a moment then sets down his cup.

“I suppose there’s no harm in telling you now.”

Standing, he goes to his secretary table to retrieve a sheet of paper then hands it to me before settling in his armchair again.

I stare at the Reward.

“Shay is a pirate. The captain of a pirate ship.”

_What?_

“I know. I didn’t quite believe it at first either but then you’ve never seen Shay scowl - he looks the part when he does.”

“That would explain…”

“Many of his scars and injuries, yes.”

“But £5000?”

“As I said, his professional activities make him very valuable, objectively valuable.”

But a sailor? On a ship surrounded by betas and alphas and nowhere to escape to during his heats?

“But, how is that possible? He’s an omega.”

“I’m not entirely sure, Shay only gave me the barest facts. But the fact that his intended was his first mate certainly had a lot to do with it - an alpha of the very first water, John, you can spot him for what he is from a mile away.”

An arrangement that protected Cormac from abuse from outside the relationship but not within it - I’ve seen the scars, the price Cormac paid for this protection.

“Is that what you meant when you said that he’d already achieved so much?”

“Yes. Like Charles, he’s managed to make himself the equal of any man. Not only overcoming his nature but also deficits of birth and education. You’ve seen and heard him, John. A working-class, Irish omega. The Redcoats let me take him because it didn’t matter whether he lived or died and yet…He even had an alpha as his second-in-command.”

“Yes, well, I’m not sure that helped their relationship.”

“Perhaps not, but that doesn’t diminish Shay’s accomplishments. £5000 from the Royal Navy, John - I don’t think anyone’s ever offered as much for me, dead or alive.”

“Nor I. But if you’d known how valuable he is? Would it have changed anything?”

“It would have made no difference. I saw enough potential in him that I asked him to join my organisation hours after we met and before I knew of his precise occupation. I see so much potential in him.”

“And yet that’s not why you took him.”

“I can’t justify it, John, don't ask me to. I still don’t understand it.”

“Do you regret it?”

“I do. I regret that I will never be able to untangle all the ties that bind us now. His people and mine are enemies, we have both done things to harm the other before we ever met that we have to forgive each other for. My guilt at having forced his hand, my blindness in the face of his shocking condition, my failure to offer the protection he needed… His gratitude, the fact that only I can offer now that his people sees him as a traitor, even the pleasure we gave each other… All of these things will forever skew our vision of each other, they might fester and become toxic, but I cannot sweep them away, I cannot undo what I’ve done. If he wakes, will he still feel indebted to me for saving his life? Or will he want nothing to do with me? If he stays, what kind of relationship can we have? Will it always be polluted by his knowledge that I desire him and my knowledge that he will always see me as the only person who can hope to keep him safe.”

“But you still intend to ask him to stay with you?”

“Yes. He needs protection but beyond that, he’s in a similar situation to Charles’. They’ve gone so far, both of them, but they’re reached almost as far as they can go alone. I’ve known this about Charles for years. He’s been well worth the trouble the army takes to keep him but he’s still anomega and - you know what his heats are like. Three days of restless irritability during which he can’t set his mind to anything and snaps at everyone he meets, during which he is physically vulnerable because of the toll his heat takes on him - three days during which he practically becomes another person and is so mortified by his condition that he refuses to be seen.”

Kenway sighs wearily, swiping his hands over his eyes a moment before picking up his cup and taking a long swallow.

“He usually uses the time to catch up on paperwork and undertake tedious tasks such as copying maps or making duplicates of documents and letters but there will come a time when that will not do. So far we’ve only seen skirmishes, lasting mere hours or a couple of days at most. But once all-out war begins his absences will be noticed, his presence missed.War can go on for weeks and months - can he disappear for three, two, even one day in the midst of open battle? Who is to take over command? When every man counts, can he justify having two men constantly posted outside his door for his protection? He will increasingly be passed over for command and promotion in favour of alphas and his resentment will increase. I can help by throwing my weight behind him but I can’t change the world alone, my influence won’t be enough. I must console him by finding other meaningful work for him.”

“And Shay Cormac?”

“Shay… Shay does not expect as much. I think he has fulfilled his ambition by becoming captain of his own ship.”

“The Navy might have something to say about that.”

“For now they only want his attacks on their ships to cease - something I can guarantee easily enough at the moment.”

“Do you really think there might be a future for him?”

“I am doing everything in my power to make it so. I have not changed, John, my beliefs haven’t changed. I still want all the things we talked about all those hours we spent on the _Providence_. Will you help me? Really help me. Will you come to my dinners and any you’re invited to and steadily campaign to change enough opinions that we can then change laws? Will you help Charles find ways to reduce his symptoms and manage them so that he’s at less of a natural disadvantage?”

 _How can it be that now_ I _feel like the guilty party?_

Sighing, I nod.

Yes, these are all the things we discussed on the _Providence_ , while I tended to the sailors whose ailments the ship’s surgeon couldn’t be bothered with and while we took our coffee on the weather deck before it was even light, desperate for fresh air after hours spent trying to sleep in the stifling heat and smell of the lower decks. Haytham may have lost his footing, but I haven’t even taken the first step.

“I’ll help. Of course, I’ll help.”

My righteousness has been a form of cowardice and there is another form of cowardice I’ll have to fight, but not tonight.

Tonight, after all that’s been said, I can’t face telling Haytham how little chance there is of Shay Cormac surviving and that with each passing day even this dwindles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Caesar's Commentaries


	4. Liam | The Offer Still Stands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Liam thinks he's prepared for a confrontation with Haytham but he hadn't anticipated how much the Grand Master would mess with his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A special thank you to Maria_and_Aguilars_Codex_1492 who first pointed out that there needed to be some kind of serious reckoning between Haytham and Liam - for some reason I completely underestimated how important it was that this should happen. Thank you again <3 
> 
> (Also, it's gotten really hot again the last few days - there might be typos...)

**LIAM**

_Arsenal, New York, December 1755_

 

Pausing after a series of push-ups, I wipe my sweat on my sleeve and rock back onto my haunches.

Both my guards are scowling.

They don’t like me to exercise but they won’t let me out to stretch my legs and I can’t just sit around all day. Besides, moving keeps me warm and I’ve got nothing else to do except rile up these betas. I was given a fresh litter, a blanket and a change of clothes too, so I can afford to soil these.

God, I’m so sick of seein’ these same four walls, the same twelve guards reshuffled into new combinations of twos and threes and fours for each shift. I’m sick of having the same piece of bread and cheese and apple and the same whiskey so watered down it tastes like three-day-old rainwater collected in a dead tree stump and left to go stale.

Interrogations, beatings, petty mistreatment, even torture - all of that I would have understood, but not this endless hanging around while the let me eat, drink, even sleep as long and often as I like. And the blanket, the litter and the clothes just mean it’s not over yet.

Like a rat in a cage. Worse, even, since rats can make themselves a nest to hide in out of newspaper or rags at least. I never thought I cared much about privacy but I’m sick of being constantly watched - when I eat, when I sleep, when I wash as best I can every evenin’ using the last of that shite whiskey-water, when I use the bucket that serves as my privy, pushed up as far as possible in the darkest corner. Especially the last two. They know I’m an alpha but even while they pretend not to they’re always _looking_.

How much longer are they going to keep me here?

This is Kenway’s doing, I’m sure of it, but to be able to keep me here for days on end… he must have more influence here than we’d thought. A lot more.

And Shay? What has he done with Shay?

When he left, taking Shay with him, I thought he’d have his fun and be back the next day with threats and questions, and _Shay_. But it’s been - what? - six days at least, and no sign of either of them.

Could Shay have talked?

And Achilles must know something’s wrong by now. What is he doing? Why haven’t they come for me? Have they tried to get Shay back?

Footsteps and voices echo down the stone stairs and a few regulars dart in, one of them whispering to the guards, another carrying a chair and stool, and a last one holding… a tea tray.

Sure enough, a moment later the usual jäger comes in with bloody Kenway again.

Well, I’ve been expecting him. They haven’t been keeping me here, fed and lodged and with my very own armed guard, for nothing. I’m ready for him.

I resist the urge to stand and settle into a crouch.

A nod from Kenway and the jäger and guards leave but Kenway waits a minute or two, watching me and looking smug, before he speaks.

“I had business in the area and thought I’d see how you’re doing, Liam - forgive me, _Master O’Brien_. Just a few days and Shay’s habits are already rubbing off on me.”

_Give me strength._

Ignoring him when there’s nothing else to focus on would be ridiculous so I just watch, trying to look indifferent, as he sits and fusses with the teacup and milk jug and eventually takes a sip, then grimaces slightly.

“They always oversteep the tea here. Do they make yours like this too?”

“They don’t give me tea.”

“Really? Well, I never said you couldn’t have any. Would you like me to have a word? It would have to be tepid, of course, I’m not sure you should be trusted with scalding hot liquids.”

Christ. He can’t say two sentences together without making me want to throttle the life out of him.

“Where’s Shay? He’s my intended, you have no right to touch him.”

“Yes, he did mention something about that but really, these things are so hard to verify. A mate is one thing, but an _intended_ \- well… Regardless, you must allow me to congratulate you on such a charming and attractive partner, Master O’Brien. Shay is _delightful_.”

I hate the way he says Shay’s name.

“I want him back, Kenway. His place is with me.”

He actually laughs at his.

“Ah, yes. In exchange for information, no doubt? What could it be? Nothing that would compromise the Brotherhood. Troop movements perhaps? Smuggling routes?”

He’s right. What can I tell him that could be of great enough importance without betraying Achilles and the Brotherhood? Has Shay told him anything?

“My own spies are not as useless as you seem to suppose. As for Shay, well, I _could_ have him brought back here as you ask.”

Kenway stands, abandoning the tea, and starts to pace slowly, hands locked behind his back, and soon he’s standing just inches outside Shay’s old cell, gazing down at the litter intently.

_Does he smell Shay on it?_

I can. Sometimes. At night, when I’m not trying to. I wake with the smell of him in my mouth but as soon as I try to hold it it melts away. Kenway has that look, and when he speaks his voice is low and thick, like he’s talking through that smell in his throat.

“Yes, I could have him brought back here to his old cell. I could put my fingers inside him and fuck him with them until he begs me to let him come all over that floor while you watch.”

_What-? Would he-?_

Before he took Shay I’d never thought of Kenway as a _man_. Of course he’s an alpha but would he really…?

Glancing at the litter, I can suddenly _see_ Shay there on all fours with Kenway bent over him, making him beg. Aye, I can picture Kenway enjoying making people beg.

Kenway’s watching me, barely smiling, and I quickly turn away from Shay’s cell.

“Nobody would stop me, least of all Shay himself. He so likes that sort of play. But then you must know all about that.”

He glances at me and his expression becomes pitying. And amused.

“Oh. Well.”

No, nobody would stop him. Even now, he could probably slit my throat and they would probably just ask him where to bury the body. If that much.

He reaches out to run a fingertip along one of the bars, then folds his hands up again and starts pacing slowly.

“You know, I hadn’t thought your tastes ran to omegas so I was a little surprised at first. I may have even disbelieved all that stuff about him being your intended but… _Shay_. After a few days together I can see how anyone might make an exception for him - so playful and docile. So very _pliant_.”

Would he? Would Shay really spread his legs for _Kenway_? Aye, he might. If it meant saving his own skin or just getting some advantage. The first night at the homestead I just put my hand on his arse and he looked at me and let me have him. And since then all it’s taken is a light slap on his thighs to make them open up. No, Shay’s not one for putting up a fight. 

But is that all he gave Kenway or-?

“And who knew that under all those rags he’d be so very attractive? Those legs…! And that pert little rump. I’d never seen the like before - all his sweet, pink parts on display like a flower calling a butterfly’s tongue or a bird’s long bill.”

Oh, aye, I know all about Shay’s ‘pert little rump’. So high and tight and his thighs so lean they hid _nothing_ of his tight balls or his prick, and that shadow between his cheeks like an invitation, like a cross on a map - X marks the spot. Just in case you missed it. Even with his breeches done up you can see the shadow and cleft at the top of his arse crack - like his body just can’t be made to look decent. Always on offer, always _enticing_.

And doesn’t Shay know it. He’s always known it.

And I was never sure he didn’t enjoy it.

“I’m not sure I’d let him run about so freely if I were you. I’m rather tempted to keep him myself. That _mouth_ … Did _you_ teach him to be that obliging? Or is it all natural talent?”

_That little whore._

Aye, Shay’s always been very _obliging_ in that way. How many times has he _obliged_ me? Not once did I have to ask for it, Shay always made it clear it was on offer. Always eager and aye, _talented_. Though God knows I never taught him. No. I let him do it but I could never watch him - not after the first time. I couldn’t stand watching him rub his cheek and his nose against me, his slow deliberate licks with the flat of his tongue, the way he kisses the head, the tip of his tongue pushing into the slit there, eagerly sucking up whatever came out, plainly _enjoying_ it. Kenway must have enjoyed it too - watching Shay treat his cock like the last stick of ice on a hot day, how his cheekbones stand out even more when he hollows his cheeks and takes him into his mouth, his throat until -. Then licking the spill off his lips like it was cream and not-. That’s why I hardly ever kissed his mouth - just the thought of what else it had touched, what I might taste…

“You must miss that. Heaven knows I would.”

Kenway turns away and I watch his back as he slowly walks to the stool for another sip of tea, making a face again.

Did Shay really do it? I know in my bones that it must have been the first thing Shay offered to do but I can’t accept it.

Kenway takes another sip of tea and I can see it travel down his throat.

Did he really do it? Did he put his cock in my Shay’s mouth? Did Shay really swallow his -?

My stomach starts to heave and I have to hold onto the bars to steady myself.

Kenway settles onto the chair again and prepares another cup of tea.

“Mmm, and the sound he makes when you take him, do you enjoy that too? That gasp, like it’s new each time, like he’s never had anything inside him before. Once I made him do it - how many was it? - four or five times inside of as many minutes - the wonder of it. The long groan as you fill him and the way his head snaps back in surprise when you push in deep. Every time, as though he simply can’t get used to it, though heaven knows he should be by now.”

_Oh god, oh god, oh god._

“You had no right, Kenway…”

I can barely get the words out through my clenched teeth.

He glances at me over the rim of his teacup.

“I don’t see why not. Besides, he was quite willing. Well, ‘ _willing’_ … Let’s just say he didn’t put up much opposition, he was in no state to. I must admit I rather took advantage of his circumstances.”

Was… was Shay in heat? I can’t remember the last time we were together during his heat. October? Did he even have a heat then? He was getting ready for Lisbon and I was preparing for my mission. And his heats are always so damn light.

“You can’t have knotted to him very often, he’s not very good at taking a knot, though he does enjoy it once it’s in.”

_No, no, no, not that._

I want to stop listening but I can’t. He’s confirming every doubt, every fear I’ve ever had about Shay.

God, I’d always worried he enjoyed sex. They say some women and omegas do, even when they’re not in love. I’ve always wondered if Shay was like that. He’s never tried to hide the fact that he likes to suck me off but what about the other thing? Was he only pretending not to enjoy it? Because he knew he wasn’t supposed to? That it was wrong for him to enjoy it when I didn’t - when I found it almost disgusting. I liked the release, aye, _needed_ it even - I’m an alpha, I can’t help it. But not Shay, I didn’t like it being Shay. But who else could it have been? He was my intended, it would have been wrong for me to go to anyone else, and so I made do, even though he’s an omega.

Whenever we were at the homestead, Shay always just disappeared for a day or two during his heats if I hadn’t arranged to be away myself on a mission. As for on the _Morrigan_ , there’s always so much to do on that bloody ship that it was easy to pretend that the first mate _had_ to take over while the captain was indisposed. I never said anything about it and neither did he. Somehow we just came to this silent agreement that we wouldn’t be together for his heats.

I always knew where he was on the _Morrigan_ , locked up in his cabin, but what about on the homestead? I’d always assumed he was hiding away until it passed or hidden away in our quarters but now I wonder if he wasn’t with someone else - with _him_. Maybe he was pretending that time too and they were seeing each other behind my back all this time.

But if he was in heat and Kenway did take him… What could Shay have told him?

“I wouldn’t believe everything he says, if I were you. Shay tends to ‘embellish’.”

“Does he? I find that hard to believe, he’s so ingenuous and forthcoming. For an Assassin.”

I can’t help laughing bitterly.

“Well, you wouldn’t be the first person he’s fooled.”

Kenway stands again, making a show of straightening and adjusting the fall of his cloak.

“Oh but he’s still so young! I can’t believe he’s all bad yet. How much can he really have achieved? He’s barely more than a child.”

“Did he tell you about Washington? Did he tell you where he got that fancy rifle of his? And when?”

“Washington? We always rather assumed that was one of your accomplishments, Master O’Brien. Seemed just your sort of pointless act - killing an already-dying man on principle. As for the rifle… You claim to be his intended and his mentor, such a token would have been eminently suitable.”

He’s on the other side of the room, looking up at one of the high windows, and doesn’t even bother to look at me, sounding bored.

Maybe Shay hasn’t told him anything yet. He always did have a gift for pretending to be more stupid than he is.

But I shouldn’t have said that and I have to get Shay back before he reveals any more.

“Bring him back. I’ll do anything.”

Now Kenway turns to me.

“Why are you so sure he wants to go back to you?

_Why? Oh Shay, you fool._

Of course Shay doesn’t want to come back to me. He still believes in whatever madness it was led him into this mess in the first place. He still thinks Achilles and I are the enemy.

“Shay’s stay with me hasn’t been… _unpleasant_ for him.”

_Christ._

“For my part, I can’t say I’m surprised. The condition he was in, Liam! I’m astonished at you letting one of your Brothers, your own intended, an _omega_ , get into such a state! And to let him be taken off by an alpha, a Templar Grand Master! You can’t really blame him for feeling a little resentment. He’s been so touchingly grateful.”

 

His stupid hat covers his face in shadow so I can’t see his expression.

He sighs quietly.

“No, you’re right. Unfortunately, your intended was in terrible condition, quite unfit for purpose. Did you know he had pneumonia?”

_Pneumonia?_

No. But then we were only at the fort overnight, I didn’t have a chance to look him over. I’d have done so on the _Morrigan_.

“Yes, he developed a high fever and fell into a coma. My personal physician is caring for him but he says it is the severest case he’s ever seen and quite despairs of saving him. The two other physicians I asked opinions of gave him up for lost entirely. You _have_ been careless with him, whatever will people say?”

_Unconscious?_

What am I? Relieved? Worried? Shocked? I can’t tell. I don’t feel anything anymore. At least Shay can’t talk if he’s unconscious.

“Won’t people wonder if an omega dies in your house?”

“Well, I hardly think anyone will believe he developed an acute case of pneumonia between here and my house while sitting in a closed carriage. You, on the other hand, claim to be his intended and he was in your care almost up to the moment when I took him into mine.”

He’s right. I failed Shay. All of this, everything I put up with, everything _Shay_ put up with, was to protect Shay and I failed. I failed because I didn’t commit to him the way I should have, I didn’t do what was necessary. I should have married him and taken him during this heat so he could have my children. Then he would have been respectable and safe.

Instead I planned to be away on missions when I knew his heat was due and said nothing when he disappeared for days on end. Because even though we never spoke about it, we didn’t want to be together for the rest of our lives _in that way._

And now Kenway has him. Kenway has him and he knows this is the best way to humiliate me.

He goes over to the stool, drains his glass then goes to tap the stone of the stairs with his foot to signal the guards before turning back to me.

“When I chose Shay you offered to take his place. Given how things have turned out, I think I’ll take you up on that offer. But not today, some other day when I have more time on my hands to indulge more fully.”

_What?!_

But the guards arrive before I have time to _think_ and within moments he’s gone.

_Some other day._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks also for all the kudos and comments and for making it through the slow-moving first chapters!


	5. Haytham | The Logbook

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With the help of the Morrigan’s master and Captain Cook, Haytham deciphers the logbook and continues to slowly piece together confirmation of what Shay told him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for architecture, discussions of seamanship, dissimulated plot points and obnoxiously long end notes. 
> 
> Sometimes you have to bury the lead and delay gratification XD

**HAYTHAM**

_Kenway House, New York, December 1755_

 

Even listening for it, the ticking of the long-case clock is barely perceptible in the vastness of the library. Because of the books, of course. Weeks ago, when the walls, shelves and floors were bare and I had to work here because my study hadn’t been completed yet, the bouncing echo of it drove me half-mad.

The collection of books I had sent from London, even with the influx of the handsome selection Reginald Birch sent over to celebrate my promotion to Grand Master,was dwarfed by the size of the room and I’d considered filling the empty space with counterfeit books made of old newspapers or woodblocks for the sake of my sanity. However, James Wardrop, having died without issue, left everything he had to the Order and even Lawrence Washington and Samuel Smith left substantial legacies to it, all of them containing books, some of them truly precious for the specialist knowledge of the colonies they contain, and after a few years of probate and other administrative trifles, these all started to make their way into my hands and onto my shelves.

Shay is not the first person to be awed by the knowledge accumulated here, and likely won’t be the last. The Library* - over fifty feet across and two stories of towering crown moulding, gilding and simulated green porphyry - is where I receive my men of business and anyone else I want to intimidate.

It is also, as I told Shay, a space for study and I hope to see it filled as I open my doors to more people. John would probably eat and sleep here if he thought Barrington would let him, especially since he usually has the place to himself, Gist and Weeks having left for Boston after our successful takeover of Fort Arsenal. They’re both regular visitors, Weeks especially - he and Shay have that in common, they’re both quick studies. I hope John’s presence won’t intimidate them into staying away - a surgeon would have been one thing but Benjamin Church sharp tongue has likely made them wary of physicians**.

My working here now is mostly pretence - the real work is done in my study and in the smaller room on the other side of it where my personal secretary toils - endlessly duplicating important documents and correspondence or writing out fair copies of my drafts and dictations, all the things Charles used to do for me in Boston.

The raid allowed me to carry off the ship’s logbook and I’ve been studying it since. Most of it is beyond a layman’s understanding but even so, it’s been a revelation. That little exercise in resource management I gave Shay must have been child’s play - an insult to his intelligence if I’d known then what I know now.

The _Morrigan_ and her crew and even Fort Arsenal are now nominally in my hands. The fort I have given over temporarily to the Redcoats who are using it as a sentinel post and training camp, by the same token keeping an eye on things until I can make more permanent arrangements. But though the two months I spent on the _Providence_ during my first crossing to the colonies gave me some insight into the running and workings of a ship, I am utterly unprepared for the responsibilities that come with even a moderately-sized ship and her crew of some hundred and more men.

The bare bones of the ship alone have been informally valued at a few thousands of pounds, and I’ve been warned in no uncertain terms that a ship, even at berth, degrades quickly without the right upkeep. The equipment and perishable cargo need urgent attention as does the crew made up of men of all origins and faiths - as motley as one could wish a pirate crew to be and likely containing a far higher proportion of Assassins than I would like.

Sir Charles is dispatching Captain James Cook to me to advise me on all these matters. I’ve met Captain Cook before and he as a fearfully sharp mind so I’ll have to come to a very strict understanding with the _Morrigan’_ s master, a Nathaniel Jones, who Shay says can be trusted. Trusted, yes, but to be loyal to whom? Not the Assassins, perhaps, but rather to Shay’s interests? Even so, there’s no telling how he’ll interpret those.

A knock at the door and Barrington announces Jones and the man himself soon steps in, wringing his cap in his hands. He glances around the library surreptitiously and when I see his gaze linger a little insistently on the Templar insignias discreetly worked into the tapestries and pietra dura*** panels I have a better sense of where we both stand.

He has to crosses the entire width of the room to join me at the large writing table, set into one of the three canted bay windows, and he’s trying not to squint at the light coming in while he stares at the small scale model of the _Morrigan_ I also took with me and now set squarely in the middle of the table.

“Good afternoon, Master Jones. I am Haytham Kenway.”

He makes a fist and touches his knuckles to the side of his forehead.

“Sir.”

“As you may know, I am the _Morrigan_ ’s temporary owner.”

His expression doesn’t change but eventually he shifts his weight and nods.

“One of the Royal Navy’s captains is coming to look over the ship’s log and advise me on the management of the ship and it’s crew but before then there are a few things I would like us to discuss.”

I nod to indicate the bounty flier lying on the flat desk.

“You’ve seen this?”

“Aye, sir.”

Moving along to his side of the table, I consider my options again.

“Let us be frank. We have every reason not to trust one another. However, I hold the _Morrigan_ ’s fate and that of her crew in my hands and that alone should give you reason to cooperate with me. Furthermore, I have here in this house a man who claims to be Shay Cormac, who told me where to find the _Morrigan_ and how to take her, and that I should come to you for advice and answers when I did. He’s unfortunately become too ill to defend his identity or the interests of his ship and crew and I cannot wait any longer - I don’t think you would want me to either, life aboard a grounded and quarantined ship must be tiresome.”

Another shift in weight.

“Aye, sir.”

“The first thing I would like you to do is confirm that the man I’m holding is, in fact, Master Cormac.”

A visible flinch but he answers calmly.

“Aye, sir.”

“And then, perhaps, if we find we understand each other, we can have a more open discussion.”

He nods again but in the most noncommittal way possible.

We make our way upstairs and I precede him into my bedroom, where Meadows is sitting at the coffee table with the latest issue of _Philosophical Transactions_ and his usual sheaf of notes.

“You really should work at the secretary table, Doctor Meadows, that one is too low for writing.”

John stands and puts on his new bedside manner.

“I like to spread out when I work.”

I make quick introductions then we go to the bed, shrouded in the heavy drapes.

Up until now, Jones has been every inch the crusty, taciturn New England seaman, but when he sees Shay he changes colour and takes half a step forward.

“I take it this is Master Cor-?”

“ _Captain_ -!”

His sharp tone is coloured by both horror and relief.

“ _Captain_ Cormac. Sir.”

“Forgive me. _Captain_ Cormac, of the _Morrigan_ , also known as the _Phantom Queen_?”

“Aye, sir.”

He wavers, as though meaning to move towards Shay before thinking better of it.

“What… What happened to him? Will he be all right?”

Meadows moves forward, still wearing that quiet look of competent sympathy he’s perfecting.

“He came to us with several injuries and a chest infection. We are doing our best for him but I cannot give any guarantees.”

Jones doesn’t take his eyes off Shay for even a moment., mangling his cap with greater vigour.

“Right. We’d better go down, Jones.”

The logbook is on the bedside table, where I always leave it, but as I reach for it I feel a strong reluctance to show it to anyone and Jones must feel the same because I see and feel him make a small move to stop me.

The logbook is not intimate, exactly, but there’s so much of Shay it in. It’s full of his writing, his sentences and thoughts, his cryptic technical notes and nonsensical doodles -a rowboat full of great auks° tailing a white whale, a ship whose sails are filled by the breath of large gulls blowing into them while an octopus surreptitiously rides on its anchor.

Jones glances at Shay again, applying an almost superhuman amount of torque to his cap, before following me back into the library.

“Master Jones, Captain Cormac is under my protection - you all are - but I’m sure you understand that the current situation is not tenable. I need to know where we all stand before the Navy’s representative arrives - he’s due in less than an hour. Now, what do you know about Captain Cormac’s whereabouts since October?”

More reluctance at first but he tells me of how their captain was sent away in secret on a different ship, a large ocean-going vessel, while they were given a different captain. Seamen talk and they knew the ship was going to Europe but it was only when it returned that they discovered it had been in Lisbon during earthquake, Jones himself heard the account from the crew members who nursed Shay throughout the journey back.

“Barely made it out - on account o’ the waves, sir.”

Oh yes, those travelled all the way to the English shores I was on.

“And when he came back?”

Another shuffle.

“Oh, the skipper weren’t back long, sir.”

No, he was not, but I suspect I know more about what happened then than Jones does.

More questioning and I start to see why Shay put so much faith in this man’s loyalty. He tells me of rumours circulating at the homestead of Shay’s failure in Lisbon and of his having lost something precious - none of which he seems to believe, almost stubborn in his defence of Shay. He says O’Brien was put in charge of the ship and of retrieving Shay who had supposedly gotten himself into a spot of bother.

“And the quartermaster, Liam O’Brien -why didn’t he go to Lisbon?”

He hesitates then plunges on.

“The _Gerfauts°°_  said Chevalier took O’Brien ’n’ Kesegowaase out west to Pennsylvania, said Kesegowaase had set up an attack on the British at Fort Henry with the Lenape°°°.”

“And where is he now?”

That unsettles him.

“Couldn’t say, sir. I thought… you might know, sir, seeing as he ’n’ the skipper left the same time.”

“All right. That will do for now, we have much to settle before Captain Cook arrives. Now, my idea would be to sell off the cargo to pay the crew until the ship’s future is decided.”

“That’d be mighty generous, sir.”

“I’m glad you think so. When speaking with Captain Cook you will keep your answers short and tell him only what he’s asking for. You’re just rogue sailors trying to make a living through your contacts, some of whom are pirates.”

“Aye, sir.”

This settled, we go through the entire ship’s muster list and he painstakingly distinguishes between those more likely to follow the Creed and those who would follow their captain and I’m pleased to see how much longer the latter list is.

“Would they really be loyal to their captain? What about the first mate and their Mentor?”

“Most of the men came with the ship, sir, ’n’ just did what they had to to stay with her. Everybody knows the skipper’s a lucky captain - a true seaman’d follow a lucky captain anywhere. Couple o’ the men were boys on his father’s ship, known him since he was born. Quartermaster’s just a title, he ain’t no sailor.”

The clock booms out the hour just as Barrington announces Captain Cook.

James Cook is Sir Charles’ clear favourite on the North American station, a disciplined and keenly intelligent officer who shows plenty of promise, just a couple of years older than Shay. Beside me, Jones stiffens visibly.

After the most cursory of introductions, Cook turns his eager gaze to the scale model.

“Is this her? Why! She’s as pretty as a Bombay grab°°°°! How do you like your new acquisition, Master Kenway?”

“I must confess I have yet to see her in daylight. Perhaps we’ll find occasion to do so together.”

“At your service, as always! Well, gentlemen, shall we have a look at these dates?”

He and Jones soon busy themselves checking the dates in the logbook against a list of engagements Cook brought with him and it quickly becomes obvious that the _Morrigan_ is indeed the ship the Navy has been searching for.

Jones is perfectly laconic - I suspect that Cook’s uniform is a healthy reminder that the man opposite can have him and the whole crew hanged for piracy with only the most cursory of trials.

We also settle the matter of the cargo, Jones and Cook having agreed on a rough estimate of its value, to be divided up in the usual shares among the men in return for continued upkeep of the ship and its equipment in the short term. I let the two of them negotiate the terms between them, intervening only to add that as the quartermaster’s share is forfeit it may be added to the collective pot and that the men will be allowed some use of the fort and its facilities.

Once the arrangements have the seal of approval from all concerned, Cook returns to his cooing admiration of the model.

“What a beauty! Have you decided what you’ll do with her, Master Kenway?”

“I have not, no.”

“If this is an accurate model, she’s in beautiful trim. With such a shallow draught she’ll never make a real ocean-going vessel. After water, provisions and supplies there would be little space left for cargo - and I expect you’re quite careful where you put things.”

“Aye, sir, the skipper’s always checking how the hold stowage.”

“Indeed. Well, she can go where larger ships cannot so if you intend to use her as a merchant vessel I would advise trading on the larger rivers and lakes - without the need to carry large amounts of provisions there would be more space for cargo. And she’s fast, I’ll wager.”

“Aye, sir, the fastest ship of her size in these waters.”

Try as he might, Jones can’t help this little show of pride.

Cook looks at me a moment.

“The Navy won’t buy her into the service?”

“I understand they give priority to larger ships.”

“Reasonable, I suppose. Still, it’s a shame. We may need fast ships for resupplying and communications. And she’d have made a fine exploration vessel - god knows we need one in the Gulf of St Lawrence. Three of our ships already had their copper scraped off when they came too close to shore.”

“Captain Cormac did mention our charts contained errors, though he said he couldn’t correct them without referring to his own charts.”

“Indeed, Sir Charles did mention that. Does Captain Cormac have an interest in hydrography then?”

“I believe he might.”

Jones leaves with my assurances that I’ll speak with him and the ship’s bosun - another man he thinks trustworthy - soon to finalise our arrangements. Cook stays on for a quiet dinner with Meadows and I, showing great interest in John’s experience treating sailors.

_Providence._

My sense of universal unity of purpose continues to increase but I've almost come to the end of what I can control. Now I must wait for Achilles to play _his_ hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Most of my inspiration for Kenway House comes from Kenwood House (how's that for hiding your sources?) on Hampstead Heath, London. I've put some pictures up [here](http://poison-despatch.tumblr.com/post/162743858087/kenwood-house).
> 
> **Surgeon: at the time a surgeon would have been a relatively low-skilled medical practitioner as compared with physicians. They ‘evolved’ from barber-surgeons whose stock-in-trade included pulling teeth, amputations, bloodletting, etc. as opposed to diagnosis, treatment and the dispensing of physick, which was done by the more high-minded physicians. 
> 
> ***Pietra dura: a stone inlay technique. 
> 
> °Seems strange now but great auks were discovered well before penguins and would have been known species even on British coasts, especially Scotland where they had breeding grounds. However, by 1755, it had already been hunted nearly to extinction in Europe so any sighting would have been noteworthy. 
> 
> °°The crew members of a ship were sometimes known by the name of the ship - e.g. the Morrigans, the Gerfauts, the Pembrokes… 
> 
> °°°The Lenape and Kesegowaase’s tribe are both Algonquian-speaking tribes. 
> 
> °°°°Grab: A grab or ghurāb (from the Arabic for ‘raven’, if you can believe it) was a shallow draught ship-rigged ship (yup), used by the Bombay marine, amongst others. In 1755, the East India Company also had two grabs in service, both called ‘Bombay’ (yup).


	6. Hope | Among the Ruins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Once the weather clears up a little, Hope and Kesegowaase go out to evaluate the damage done to the Davenport homestead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ha! Wonder if anyone saw this coming! XD 
> 
> Hope's POV.

**HOPE**

_Davenport Homestead, Massachusetts, December 1755_

 

“I will check it.”

Ploughing through the thigh-deep snow, Kesegowaase goes to the hunting blind, already half caved in, and reaches out to test its solidity and he’s barely given the roof a shake before the whole thing collapses.

He glances at me then starts retracing his steps.

“The hunting platforms are more protected by the trees.”

“Yes, let’s check those then we’ll head back.”

We’ve already been to the wrecked training ground.

When the weather improves and some of this snow melts we’ll have to rebuild but for now, we’re making a mental list of how much needs to be done - a couple of weeks worth, so far.

Usually, we’d task some of the more reliable senior trainees but after Shay’s dramatic departure - the closest thing to a battle many of our junior members had ever lived through - and this unprecedented blizzard that has all but cut us off from the rest of the world, there’s a sense of morbid anticipation hanging over the homestead. And now Liam is taking a lot longer than expected to return. Even I can’t completely repress a sense of dread. Lately, everything Shay touches, he ruins.

Most of our people are busy clearing snow from the roofs, doors, paths, seeing to the horses, while there’s a break in the snowfall. Besides, Kesegowaase and I decided there was no need to aggravate the situation by having anyone else see the extent of the destruction just yet. When Liam returns they’ll settle down - Liam always knows how to keep everybody calm.

As we trudge towards the nearby trees the going gets easier, there’s less snow on the ground under the tall pines.

“They’re still holding.”

“Yes, but there is too much snow on them.

He’s right. Most of the snow is packed into a canopy but as we watch one of the large branches gives way and dumps half its load of snow onto the platform below. As more of them give way the platforms will become overloaded.

“If it does not snow tomorrow, I will come back with a small team and clear what we can. Perhaps it will be enough.”

“Very well.”

This is all on top of the more urgent structural damage caused to the inhabited structures, the farmhouses and cottages we all live in, and even the stables and the shacks down around our small harbour - all of them have either lost roof tiles, developed leaks or even cracks in the log walls where the melted snow has collected then frozen again.

It starts snowing. Not much but I know from experience that a snowstorm can develop in an instant and in this deep snow it will take us a while to return to the big house.

“Let’s go back.”

_I need coffee. Hot, black coffee._

We start tramping back towards the big house, lifting our feet high in and out of the knee-deep snow. After a few steps Kesegowaase pulls ahead and I follow his trail. He doesn’t mean anything by it, he’s a tracker, huge and powerful, even bigger than Liam. Everybody falls into his tracks.

Since I’m usually in New York while he’s usually here or liaising with various native tribes, we only really spend time together when we’re both here at the homestead, but we get along well, Kesegowaase and I. He treats me exactly the same way he treats Achilles or Liam or Chevalier and he’s the only person with whom I can forget that I’m a woman - sometimes I wonder if he’s ever noticed.

When we get back we’ll start planning teams and a schedule for repairs but it really it should be Liam and he doing it - Kesegowaase using it as an opportunity to teach and drill his students on frontier survival skills while Liam focusses on the team-building aspect. They used to work together like that but of course they haven’t for years now. Something else Shay ruined.

We’ve barely spoken about it, only mentioning Liam and Shay obliquely, but I know that’s something else we agree on. This pretence that Shay’s escape from the homestead was just a dramatic new form of training and that his ‘losing’ the manuscript was an unrelated failure is absurd. Our forces are spread too thin and our leads too few for us to waste time pretending that finding Shay and finding the manuscript are two separate things.

I understand Achilles’ reluctance to admit to having lost the manuscript so soon after finding it andChevalier’s concern that the Templars might smell an opportunity if they hear of our problems. Liam always votes with Achilles so mine and Kesegowaase’s view is the minority one but Liam and I had long talk at Fort Arsenal after we found Shay and I think I’ve finally brought him around to our view. Without his deciding vote, nothing can change, and if Shay really doesn’t have the manuscript then every day that passes is a lost opportunity for us and a fresh one for the Templars who must still be searching for both manuscript and box.

Kesegowaase also isn’t one for small talk the dull crunch of snow under his feet only makes the silence around us louder. We’re already well into the Massachusetts winter and there are no animals or birds around. Just the whiteness of the sky and of the ground and of the bare birch trees, without even the wind to move them. The homestead feelsdead.

We could be at the heart of the frontier but actually we’re not even in the outer fringes of the homestead’s grounds. Most of the wild animals have retreated further into the forest while we’ve moved our animals closer to the buildings and the cove. When the sun comes out the novices will be back out here to train and rebuild but for now it’s too cold and it’s hard not to feel that we’re all somehow… diminished.

It was like this when Abigail and Connor died.

Finally we’re in view of the homestead and a lookout standing under the eaves waves at us.

“The Mentor asked to see you, Mistress Hope - a messenger came from New York.”

A quick nod at Kesegowaase and I go straight through the warmth of the house, out of the back door as directed, fighting the temptation to stop a while in the kitchen, warm with the smell of dinner and the coffee I so desperately need. Somewhere upstairs, someone is playing the fiddle and I can hear the dull thud and creak of dancing on the wood floor.

Achilles is slowly pacing outside on the porch, a letter in his hand, eyes downcast, and doesn’t notice me.

“Mentor?”

“Ah, Hope.”

He pauses and holds out the letter with a nod.

“Haytham Kenway has Liam.”

_Liam!_

“That’s impossible!”

But it’s here in Kenway’s own writing - Liam and his partners stopped then detained for brawling, Liam is being kept under lock and key at Kenway’s pleasure and an invitation to Achilles to discuss the possibility and eventual terms of his release.

“Oh, I think it must be true. Haytham Kenway would not claim to have Liam if he did not.”

True, and of course it is possible. Liam and I were in New York together over a week ago. When it became clear that he would have to travel by sea, he told me to go on ahead and stayed on at Fort Arsenal, one of our most recent, more discreet hideouts - one with a small dock and that we don’t share with any of the local gangs. Even so, we expected them back here two days ago at most.

Shay has done more damage to the Brotherhood in a month than the Templars have since Achilles bought this homestead.

A timid knock and the door is pushed slightly open.

“Mistress Hope, a message for you from New York.”

Taking and opening the envelope that is slipped through the crack, I find more bad news.

“Fort Arsenal was stormed, the Redcoats are in possession.”

“And the ship?”

“They have her too.”

Achilles nods without showing the slightest sign of surprise - as though he’d been expecting some other calamity.

“So, they probably did not leave New York and Haytham Kenway is telling the truth.”

“Do you think the two things are connected?”

“I do not think it is a coincidence. You said Liam was planning to spend at least a night there.”

“Yes, Shay refused to come back and couldn’t be brought back on horseback so Liam decided they would come back on the _Morrigan_.”

“Then it is possible that he and the others were taken when the fort was stormed.”

We can hear muffled laughter from the kitchen and Achilles leaves the porch, wandering out onto the grounds, towards the cliffs. Keeping pace with him, I reread Kenway’s letter.

“He doesn’t say he has Shay.”

“No, but he also does not say that he does not. Even if the Redcoats captured Shay as well, perhaps Kenway did not keep him. After all, Shay is not Liam and every prisoner is a mouth to feed. We will have to discover where Shay is.”

“Shouldn’t we think about Liam first? We _know_ Kenway has him.”

“We know Haytham Kenway has him,” Achilles agrees, tilting his head, “But Kenway has made an offer, Liam is not in any immediate danger. I will try to find out more about Liam when I write to Kenway, but I cannot ask him about Shay. If he does not know who Shay is, I do not want to give him a reason to ask. We will have to find another way to locate him.” 

“Liam might know where he is.”

“Only if they are still together. If they were not taken together or if they were separated, then I am sure Liam does not know what has happened to Shay. Who did Liam have with him?”

“Thompson and Caraway. I’ll ask my contacts if they’ve heard anything about them. Shay might be with them.”

Where could Liam be? Kenway’s house? No, Kenway wouldn’t bother keeping a prisoner in his own house, and it would only invite an attack. Perhaps at Fort Arsenal itself, since the Redcoats have it. I don’t understand how they could have taken it, we had men there, _Liam_ was there, it was well defended. But if not there then…

“He might be in the barracks, it would be the safest place. If they’re together we could try to get them out. It would be a huge undertaking but a strong, concentrated force-.”

“ _If_ they are together. If they are not and Shay is still under Kenway’s control, then retrieving one will almost certainly mean losing the other - Kenway will make it a point of honour not to lose both. Mounting two simultaneous operations would be an enormous undertaking and if one of them is being held at the barracks, as you suppose, well… an assault there would require all our forces.”

He’s right, of course. The barracks are heavily fortified, heavily garrisoned, and heavily guarded now that the arsenal and the governor are both housed there.

Liam would usually be the one to organise and lead an expedition like this and without his skills - and Shay’s, such as they are - our operational capacities are reduced. Kesegowaase is a strong and skilled warrior but he doesn’t command the men’s loyalty and devotion the way Liam does, and besides, he cannot be expected to lead the entire force alone.

But I’m getting ahead of events.

We pause at the edge of the cliff overhanging the empty bay where the manuscript was lost and where the _Morrigan_ should be berthed. How much more will Shay cost us?

“You said Shay did not have the manuscript on him.”

“No, he claims he lost it when he fell.”

“Do you believe him?”

“I’m not sure, mentor, but it is possible. He washed up along way from here.”

“Yes, I see.”

He doesn’t.

Achilles and Liam believed, really believed, that Shay’s was a passing moment of stupidity and that he would eventually see sense and return the manuscript to them. And even though in New York Liam had started to understand that he’d been wrong, I think some part of him clung to the notion that this could just be undone and put back as before. Achilles still believes it.

Shay didn’t have the manuscript. He must have lost in the fall or in the days of drifting at sea or when he was fished out or when he was making his way to New York. How could he have kept it through all of that? Shay’s never been able to hold onto anything important. And even if he had, he would have destroyed it to keep it out of our hands. That was his original intention, that night on the cliff.

“If Kenway knew who Shay is, he would not be bartering Liam. He would have had him killed.”

“Unless he thinks Liam is worth both the manuscript and the box. Unless he has the manuscript already and wants to exchange Liam for the box. ”

_Ah._

Achilles turns to me.

“What must I answer if he asks me for both in return for Liam? If I agree then it can only be to buy time. If I only offer him the box he might suspect we do not have the manuscript. What is Liam to answer if Kenway questions him about it?”

“Then we must buy time.”

This must be the calamity Achilles expected.

“We should have been stricter with Shay.”

 _I_ should have been stricter with Shay. Achilles and Liam never saw that Shay was just a disaster waiting to happen, but I knew. This is my fault as much as anyone’s.

“We did what seemed best for all. But perhaps we were wrong in our determination of what that was.”

As we stand in silence the wind picks up, comes howling up the cliffside and nearly rips the letter from my hand so I return it to Achilles who refolds it carefully then tucks it into his jacket.

“I will write to Kenway. I will try to get more information from him and to buy us time so we can decide what action we should take.”

“Very well, Mentor. I will go back to New York and lead the search there. We must tell Chevalier about this. The docks are close to the barracks - the men talk, they use the same whores - his contacts might have heard something.”

“The road will be difficult, are you sure you should go yourself?”

The search will only be quick and efficient if I direct it myself. The men would have told me if they’d heard anything in the message they sent me. But of course they don’t know what they’re looking for. They think we’ve found Shay and are still searching for the manuscript. I have to go myself, it is the least I can do for Liam.

“I will do what I must, Mentor.”

And quickly. We mustn’t leave Liam in Kenway’s hands for a moment longer than we have to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's Achilles in a quandary.


	7. Haytham | Crime & Punishment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As sources of frustration multiply, Haytham takes his anger out on Liam.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *WARNINGS APPLY*  
> Violent, unequivocal non-con, forced orgasms and general mindfuck.  
> Unlike the Shay scenes, which could be placed on the softer side of dub-con, this is right on the other end of the spectrum, firmly in non-con ground - please exercise discretion 
> 
> All history/story plot points are at the start of the chapter, you'll know when you get to non-con. For those who are uncomfortable with it, I've put a summary of the important points in the end notes, under the footnotes.

**HAYTHAM**

_Arsenal, New York, December 1755_

 

“Until next time, Kenway, and send my regards to Johnson, should you have occasion to write to him.”

“I most certainly shall, Sir Charles. This whole affair has given me much to think about.”

As I take my leave of the governor after yet another working luncheon, his secretary nods at my attendant footman, as well-dressed as he is in his Kenway livery, and hands him my letter case, an oversized leather envelope bearing my name and crest tooled in gold on the flap. It now holds a selection of first hand accounts as well as the Pennsylvania deputy governor’s own report of the attack on Fort Henry*, which I’d like to read myself now that I know the part the Assassins played in it.

Picking my way over the muddy terrain, among the quantity of soldiers milling about or sitting around fires on which they roast their skewered meals, I turn over what I know of the Fort Henry attack and the situation in Pennsylvania.

The way Benjamin Franklin tells it, Deputy Governor Morris** is as responsible as anyone for what happened there. The governor and Franklin have long been in opposition over the local proprietor’s refusal to have their lands taxed to fund the provinces defences - a refusal that Morris defends and Franklin deplores. Meanwhile, this stalemate leaves the area and its populations unarmed and vulnerable to the depredations of the France’s native allies in the region.

As it sits north of the Ohio river, the area falls, I believe, within William’s influence and I must wrote to both him and Franklin to see if their local contacts can give us a more impartial account of what happened there on November 19th***, though even by Morris’ partial account of it, if O’Brien’s involvement could be proved, it would be enough to have him put to hard labour for the rest of his natural life at least.

The tensions there are merely the local variant of a problem encountered all over the colonies - local populations being pushed out of their ancestral lands by colonists and other newer arrivals. It is the very sort of situation that brought James Wardrop into conflict with Kesegowaase and I suppose it’s no surprise that Kesegowaase takes this as an opportunity of protecting his distant clansmen from the sort of expropriation his own tribe feels victim of.

Still, it is dispiriting to know that the Assassins’ influence and effective range of action has spread that far while the Order is powerless to counter it. Next time I see Franklin I’ll raise the issue with him, Grand Master to Grand Master, and see how a stronger cooperation between Templars and Freemasons might most effectively be brought to bear on the situation.

As I come into sight of the well-guarded structure in which O’Brien is being held, I’m reminded of another piece of paper in my letter case and the more immediate reason why I’m here.

Since I first wrote to Achilles I have received two letters from him, both full of long-winded prevarications and unjustified requests for more information regarding our proposed meeting, both irritating to the highest degree. Anyone reading his letters would think him indifferent to O’Brien’s fate, which takes things to such a rare pitch of ridicule that I’m already ashamed at my part of it.

Of course, I understand his dilemma, and in truth his need to draw the process out even though he already knowshe will accept my invitation works in my favour since I haven’t quite finalised my own arrangements. Still, he has spent years wearing my patience thin and O’Brien even more so.

Achilles will agree to my terms in the end and when he does I’ll have to return O’Brien to him in reasonably good condition.However, it occurred to me that I may still be able to leave my mark on O’Brien - after all, he’s deserved to have some hidden wounds of his own and just now, exasperated by Achilles’ clear desire to waste my time and with the details of Fort Henry still fresh in my mind, I’m very much in the mood to inflict them.

Thomas Hickey is at the door, waiting for me.

“Any problems?”

“Plen’y. But we got there in the end.”

“Sounds like it was quite the production.”

“Fit for the West End. Charlie’d be a lot more obliging an’ a lot less trouble. Somefink to keep in mind for next time.”

“That’s enough, Thomas.”

“I’ll be nearby an’ my men are around, just call if you need us.”

“Very well.”

I make my way down into the deserted holding room where I find Liam in his cell, stripped naked, bent over a stool and securely tied to it by several very generous lengths of unusually dark rope.

He hasn't been given food for three days and I instructed his guards to tell him there was no longer any point to feeding him if he asked. I wanted to put the fear of death in him so he'd be unprepared for this. 

I had an instinct Hickey was the one to go to and he clearly knew his business when he assured me he could find the right people for the job, even though we only spoke of the job in question in the vaguest possible terms.

“Good afternoon, Liam. Well now, is that the same stool I took tea off of last time we met?”

O’Brien has just enough freedom of movement in his neck that he can turn to me with a look of wild hatred, his snarl muffled by the cloth gag in his mouth and tied around his head.

I take a turn around him, admiring Hickey’s handiwork. There’s a very pleasing symmetry in the way the rope is laid out and how darkly it stands out against O’Brien’s fair skin.

He’s bent right over, hands and ankles bound to the stool’s legs, more rope around his chest and his waist and his knees, securing him to the stool and almost completely immobilising him. Thomas so completely understood my intention that there are even a couple of loops of the dark rope keeping O’Brien’s arse cheeks parted and a large mirror hung from the iron bars, at the perfect height for O’Brien and I to admire ourselves in - I can’t help smiling.

Coming to a stop before him, I start unbuttoning my breeches, and O’Brien rocks so violently the stool’s two back legs threaten to leave the ground, but of course his feet don’t touch the ground so he doesn’t have sufficient purchase. Besides, tied up as he is, he’d only do himself an injury if he did succeed.

Pulling my cock out of my breeches I give it a few lazy strokes and O’Brien’s eyes widen before he looks away quickly.

“What a lucky thing it is for me that you’re available, Liam, I’ve had to do without for so long. I’d use your mouth but I’m not sure I can trust you with such a tender part of me.”

His head jerks as I rub the head of my erection over his lips but he’s already straining as far away from me as he can.

“I suppose I’ll just have to make do with another part of you. Nothing personal… Well, maybe it is a _little_ personal. You’ve been a pain in my arse, after all. Only seems fair that I should return the favour. Well, I say ‘pain’ but… I always feel that men who take such pains to make their alphahood obvious the way you do must be hiding something.”

Moving away, I look him over again. Too much brawn for my taste but a magnificent specimens nonetheless. A thick member and heavy knot - every inch the perfect alpha.

“Look at you. You’re like a prize bull or some great stag. You know, in other circumstances you’d have made a very popular gardener or stablehand. I’m sure several great ladies of my acquaintance would have been only to glad to avail themselves of your services.”

He’s glaring at me in the mirror, still defiant.

Holding his gaze and smiling, I pull a very small, pewter-necked leather pouch from an inner pocket.

“What do you think? Isn’t it ingenious? My pig-farmers use these to feed the runts of the litter if they can’t feed for themselves.”

More smothered protests as I start to push the long, slender neck into him, squeezing the leather sack to push out the oil it holds.

He strains against the rope but doesn’t rock the stool this time.

“I know, it’s cold, but it’ll warm. You’ll have to bear the discomfort for my sake - I dislike the chafe when taking other alphas.”

True enough. But I also don’t want to make him tear or bleed or to hurt him in any obvious way. I want to humiliate him - _destroy_ him from within if I can.

Pulling the nozzle out to him, I spread the last few drops over my shaft then drop the pouch onto the floor and start to push into him.

“Look at me, Liam.”

He refuses, of course, clenching his muscles to prevent me, so I continue to press, watching in the mirror as beads of sweat form on his forehead.

“I won’t hurt you if you look at me.”

He resists a moment longer but as his muscles start to tremble with effort and finally he raises his head without meeting my gaze.

Leaning over, I take hold of the hanging ends of his gag and give them a sharp tug.

“ _Look at me_.”

Terror displaces hatred in his clear blue eyes as I give his neck a long, hard bite and press the rest of the head of my erection into him. A thick gasp and his nails click faintly against the varnished wood of the stool as he weakly tries to hold onto its legs and when I release his neck, his head drops.

“Don’t fight me, Liam. Let yourself enjoy it.”

Another quick glare and another stifled groan as I start to move, prodding inside him until I find that special lump inside him, a visible spark of surprise runs through him the first time I brush against it and his eyes fly open as he looks up sharply the first time I hit it fully.

He lowers his head again but I can see the whites of his eyes in the mirror as he stares at the floor in panic, his knuckles also going white as he grips the stool’s legs tightly, clearly fighting the mounting pressure inside him, willing himself not to come.

A futile effort since the mechanics of this are largely outside his control and he releases the wooden bars, fingers rigidly splayed, as he comes, flinging a few thick ropes of his seed onto the dark stone-flagged floor.

“There, let it go. So much of it, Liam, having you been saving it?”

He doesn’t even react and merely stares at pale streaks in horror.

“My own knot feels quite full too, it’s been a while for me as well. Shall we do it again?”

The barest defeated shake of his head.

“Well then, now that you’ve had yours, I’ll take mine, but I’ll need to go quite a bit deeper than this.”

He glances at me in sheer terror before lowering his head again as I move inside him again, drawing out before pushing in deeper, forcing his body to adjust to me, and he howls into the gag as I come up hard against the barrier deep inside him.

“Try to relax, Liam, it’ll be easier if you do.”

A few short, powerful thrusts and O’Brien’s head snaps up as I force my way past the reticent muscle. I hold myself there, buried deep, as his entire body clenches against me, trying to wrench me out.

“It’s all right, Liam. It’s quite normal. The body’s instinct is to expel but with practice it can be taught to overcome, like a gag reflex, and fortunately we have time.”

I remember the pain and discomfort of it, quite real though so far I’ve managed to avoid real damage, he’s not bleeding.

His whole body is rigid with the effort of fighting me and the fine sheen of sweat that covers him brings out the contours of his muscles contracted muscles. Thanks to the mirror I can see his lowered head and the threads of saliva that drop from his mouth to pool on the ground. A violent shudder shakes him and his breath comes out in a low snort as his muscles give out around me.

“There, see? No need to fight it.”

Drawing back, I let him take a few deep steadying breaths before ploughing back in and out a few times, forcing a strangled moan from him each time.

Finally, I retreat until just an inch or two of me are still inside him to let him catch his breath and ease his muscles.

“I hadn’t planned on spending myself inside you until I’d knotted to you but you’re so wonderfully tight I may indulge myself just once before then.”

He shakes his head a lot more emphatically this time.

“It’s probably for the best, Liam. If I keep it all in now, we might later find ourselves tied together for hours.”

Taking up my position again, I push until my head is pressed insistently against his barrier.

“Now, let’s try fifteen smooth strokes, hmm? _Smooth_ strokes, mind. From the rim of my head right up to my knot in one stroke, no obstacles.”

I draw back a little then snap back hard but of course he’s not ready and I catch on the muscle.

“Smooth strokes, Liam. Here, let me help.”

A few sharp thrusts and I’m through again and I hold, letting his body fight me.

“There, hold onto this feeling, Liam. Remember it. Think we can try it again? Nod when you’re ready.”

He’s rigid and trembling uncontrollably all at once, gripping the stool and sweating profusely.

“I won’t start until you’re ready, Liam.”

Still nothing but eventually his body gives out and he draws in a deep, racking breath.

“I’m happy to wait this out, Liam.”

A desperate, broken whimper before he braces himself and finally nods.

I count each hard, deliberate stroke, watching him in the mirror.

At seven, the tremble in his tense limbs increases and at the ninth stroke his body gives up and I catch on the barrier again as a loud, wracking sob escapes him.

“A valiant effort. I’ll let you rest a moment then we’ll try it again, hmm? Nod when you’re ready.”

A small sound of despair as he hangs there, limp as a rag in his bonds, the pool of drool now also fed by sweat and possibly even tears.

This time he nods without being prompted and we make it to eleven before he capitulates with a loud, desperate groan.

His heaving breaths shake his whole body, now completely slick with sweat.

“I don’t think we’ll make it to fifteen today, do you? Shall we try something else?”

He responds to my questions, beaten, but he doesn’t look at me again.

“Five strokes. But I’ll pull out completely with each stroke.”

Another quiet groan but he nods.

He strains every last nerve and muscle, grunting with the effort, and this time we make the full count. I stay buried and wait for him to relax but of course he doesn’t until he feels the first spurt of seed deep inside him.

“What a sweet little sound you make whenever I penetrate you, Liam.”

How long has it been? The windows darkened a while ago and I’ve since lost all sense of time.

Under my clothes I’m building up sweat too but I refuse to so much as loosen my cravat, I won’t cede the slightest inch of my control over the situation.

“Now, since you’ve been so obliging, I’ll treat you to my knot - I’m sure you’ll enjoy that.”

More desperate head-shaking as I start to push but the stretch must be unbearable and when I offer to bite him he immediately nods, whimpering as he feels my knot enter him.

After giving him a moment to adjust, I start to nudge gently, creating just the friction necessary to cause my knot to swell. O’Brien thrashes but the ropes hold him, bruises already forming beneath them.

This is another time at which I would usually bite an inexperienced partner as they’re prone to panicking when they feel a knot swell for the first time. There’s no need with O’Brien - he can’t move and consequently can’t hurt himself.

Fully swollen, my knot presses snugly against that nub of pleasure inside him. I move my hips in fast, shallow snaps and O’Brien’s eyes go wide as the steady motion builds up pressure inside him.

Waiting until he comeswith a strangled cry, I find my own release as he looks in horror at the new streaks he’s left on the floor. After a moment’s rest, I start a slow, deliberate, regular roll of my hips and though it takes him a little longer this time, O’Brien eventually reaches climax.

This time too I wait until he’s wrung out the last drop of his pleasure before allowing myself my own. I can’t remember the last time I knotted to someone - I’d forgotten how rapturous a sensation it is. 

O’Brien is exhausted, his members twitch even in rest, and I think he only has one, perhaps two orgasms left in him.

Nudging deeper, I keep up a steady, insistent pressure on his sensitive part, watching as he moans and keens - I can even feel his knot tightening.

“Do you feel that?”

The briefest nod then I draw back, relieving the pressure and pulling instead on the muscle that holds me so securely inside him, which earns me another shuddering gasp as his body tightens, tightens to trap me.

“Ah, you feel that too, don’t you? Shall I push back in?”

Another desperate nod then he hangs his head in relief as I apply steady pressure again.

“Oi! ‘alf an ‘our ’til the evenin’ watch gets ‘ere!”

O’Brien startles as Hickey’s disembodied voices bounces off the stone walls.

“Thank you, Thomas.”

O’Brien is breathing hard again.

“All right, Liam. One last time and hopefully I’ll be able to make my knot go down. It’ll have to be rushed but - who knows? - you might find you like it rough.”

He shakes his head wearily but it’s clear he’s not going to fight me. Sure enough, he endures the hard, fast pounding and soon I feel the familiar spasms and prepare myself. This time, I let myself come when he does, so that my seed spills into him just as his does onto the floor.

For a while, we stay quiet together and soon I feel my knot go down. When I start to pull out of him, O’Brien tenses again, breathing quickly.

“No, don’t clench or I’ll never get myself out, Liam. Push, slowly.”

His body wracked by silent sobs, he obeys and I slowly ease my knot out of him. As we work past the widest part of my knot, the rest is forced out easily and his muscles give up again, tightening around the part of my shaft still in him.

“Very good, Liam. I would offer to clean you out but I just don’t feel the urge at the moment. No matter, having my seed inside you won’t hurt you.”

He makes no answer to this, his breathing still ragged and hacking, but his body jerks as the rim of my erection catches on his muscle.

I tidy myself up quickly, pick up the leather pouch from the ground and look at O’Brien a last time.

“Well, Liam, I think I can say I enjoyed that at least as much as you did. Now, mind you don’t give my people any trouble, your guards will be back in ten minutes at most and we wouldn’t want them to see you in this state, would we?”

Hickey is waiting a few steps up, in a bend in the stairs, leaning against the stone wall with his arms crossed, his chin on his chest.

“Make sure he’s decent.”

A slight nod as Hickey gives me an appraising look of lazy respect. I continue up the stairs and he slips into the chamber below and when he speaks to O’Brien his voice echoes up to me.

“Look at you! The big man’s been generous! Tempted to take my turn wiff you myself but your guards’ll be back soon. Maybe next time, ‘ey, sweet’art?”

When I return home, my under-butler informs me my bath has already been drawn for me so I go straight upstairs and to my bathroom, thorough the dressing room door.

Stripping quickly, I eschew the bath, instead drawing the scalding water from it, and the fire hisses and spits at the drops that fall into it as I upend bucket after bucket over myself, watching the sheets of water run over the stone into the drainage canals set into it, washing away my snarled up feelings of accomplishment and distaste.

The last time I had so strong a sense of having done something unpleasant but imperative was at Braddock’s death°. I still deplore the necessity of it but I don’t regret it for a moment.

Dried, changed, and feeling cleaner, I pad barefoot into my bedroom where Barrington has fallen fast asleep in an armchair. He opens his eyes as I pass him but closes them again on a sign from me.

Shay is just as I left him.

Brushing my fingertips over the cut on his face, I settle into my armchair, then pick up the book on the bed stand and quietly continue reading to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Fort Henry, a.k.a. Busse’s Fort: this is not Fort William-Henry but a fort in Pennsylvania, a few miles from Fort Swatara. 
> 
> ** Morris was the de facto governor but the official governor was a certain Thomas Penn, who lived in England - the name probably tells us a lot of what we need to know about this situation… 
> 
> *** Just one instance of a particularly fierce attack - killings and scalpings on both sides, the works - but my understanding is that there was basically continuous conflict in the area for years. 
> 
> ° Braddock: The line about Liam being a pain in the arse is actually lifted word for word from the last conversation Haytham has with Braddock - I thought it fit the situation quite nicely.
> 
> **____________________________**
> 
> Summary:  
>  Haytham goes down to the holding cells where Liam has been restrained by Hickey, as per his instructions. Once they're alone, he opens by implying that Liam is the kind of alpha who enjoys being taken by other alphas - which would make Liam a deviant in his own puritanical eyes. Haytham then forces Liam into a series of orgasms, even knotting to him, taking care to recreate all the details he mentioned to Liam the last time they spoke. He tasks Hickey to get Liam cleaned up before the night watch arrives then goes back home. 


	8. Haytham | Horror Vacui

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And just like that...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, the last of the super-dark chapters...
> 
> A huge thank you for reading this far despite all the angsty chapters and for all the kudos and comments - always very happy to get those! - and welcome to any new readers! <3
> 
> **______________________________**
> 
> Edit: This chapter has been reworked. 

**______________________________**

_Un seul être vous manque et tout est dépeuplé._

– Alphonse de Lamartine –

**______________________________**

**HAYTHAM**

_Kenway House, New York, December 1755_

 

“Sir Charles says he will eat anything but he’s rather wistfully mentioned how much he misses small game while he’s at sea - perhaps we can indulge him when he comes here.”

“I’m we sure we can, sir. We have pheasant and wild turkey planned for the larger events but we could serve grouse when he comes alone. With one of the Burgundy wines.”

“That should do nicely. I’ve promised him at least one dinner with Franklin - William should be there. And… yes, Pitcairn too.”

“In that case, perhaps we could serve woodcock to go with the claret Master Johnson so enjoys.”

“Yes, perfect.”

“I’ll make a note of it, sir.”

When Shay first fell ill, I suspended all construction works but with the first guests due to arrive in just over a week, we’ve felt compelled to take them up again. Rough rush mats have been laid down in most of the public areas of the main house, changed every day or so as they get worn down by the constant comings and goings of workmen and craftsmen, and the merchants and tradesmen and farmhands who have started to stock the house’s larders and cellars with game, meats, flour, sugar, tea, wines, spirits, and all the other things required for this kind of celebratory siege.

Having sought refuge from the tumult, Barrington and I are sitting by the fire in my bedroom, looking over our preparations for the Yuletide festivities, and my dinner, barely touched, is still on the coffee table among scattered guest lists, wine lists, menus, seating charts, room allocations, calendars and the great black leather-bound book in which Barrington records the minutest details of every formal event we hold.

“Did Master Johnson and you decide what to do about Master Lee, sir?”

“William agrees that Charles should stay with him - he’ll write and say he wants them to look over that survey map. Meadows being here gives us a credible reason for not having a spare room for him too, if it comes to that.”

Barrington would usually be downstairs overseeing operations - this is his domain, after all, and he’s always been reluctant to cede control or responsibility to others.

He’s worried about me. John too is worried about me.

The last time Barrington was this worried about me was twenty years ago, when we were first introduced and Reginald was sending me off to school, mere months after the death of my parents.

Of course, he doesn’t think any of this is about Shay. He believes it’s about Reginald. Perhaps he’s right.

“Is Doctor Meadows…?”

“He’s coming around to the idea. I think meeting the other members of the Order will encourage him to join. Johnson has already started collecting the information John is interested in, regarding the proportion of alphas and omegas in the various tribes and certain practices in midwifery. William has already written to say that even without the final numbers, in the populations he’s seen the population is evenly split between the three dynamics. John thinks there will be enough worthwhile data for a monograph. You like him, don’t you, Barrington?”

“Very much, sir. A most worthy and level-headed professional.”

“He can be prickly about being helped. So far, the information from Johnson is the only concrete form of patronage he’s accepted. Along with some introductions. Captain Cook has already obtained an invitation to the governor’s ball for him, without my having said a word about it.”

It seems inhuman that life should go on without Shay. But it does. Life is going on even more merrily than usual, as if trying not to see the thunderclouds on the horizon.

The governor and former governor are planning a ball together, the ladies invited eagerly await the new gowns they’ve ordered for the occasion, and every day more housewarming gifts arrive, sent by my fellow Templars from every corner of the world - two days ago, three great chests inlaid with ivory and filled to bursting with wildly vivid textiles; yesterday, two wolfhound pups* arrived from the Grand Master of St Petersburg’s own Tsarskoye Selo estate; and today, five thoroughbreds that Reginald Birch arranged to have sent over months ago, before I knew the truth of him.

My truth is that I can barely keep up the pretence of caring about these end of year festivities I planned long before I ever set eyes or Shay or knew of his existence.

Outside, a fiddle starts up, immediately followed by cheers, a flute, more fiddles, clapping, and singing. The _Morrigan_ ’s men. Each day, Jones sends up a handful of the men he deems most trustworthy, to carry out chores - cutting down firewood, shovelling snow, repairs - and in return they are fed from our kitchens. Despite the cold, they and many of the workmen gather outside with their ales, around small makeshift fires, to sing and dance to sea shanties** and folk songs*** for a couple of hours before wandering off into the night.

“Should I ask them to stop, sir?”

“No, leave them.”

I don’t mind it. And it might be reassuring for Shay to hear familiar sounds and voices. I know something of his nightmares and dread to think of the places his mind might be drifting to in sleep. I  ache to feel him folded up against me in sleep again. 

Barrington stands and goes to settle a small log into the fire before crossing over to the bed, barely disturbing the two wolfhound pups, pale and long-haired, who are curled up together by the fire like a creamy meringue or like… pismaniye.

Even though he’s trained a couple of footmen in these basic medical skills, Barrington still doesn’t trust anyone but himself and John to check Shay’s heart rate and temperature and blood pressure and other vitals - not even me - and he carries these tasks out with the same cursory efficiency with which he checks the footmen’s liveries for lint. His thumb across the right wrist, he measures the pulse against the pocket watch in his other hand, then gently lifts Shay’s head with one hand and plumps the pillow with the other in a gesture that is so familiar I feel it in my own flesh.

“Does it remind you of when I was a child?”

“It does, sir.”

No change in his expression or tone but no hesitation either.

“Thank you for taking care of him, Barrington. I know you don’t approve of my bringing him here.”

“I expect it will be worth it, sir, if he is the captain the Navy has been searching for.”

He wipes Shay’s brow with a damp cloth.

“Do you think it likely that he is who he says, sir?”

“Very likely. O’Brien gave it away unwittingly before Shay did. I questioned three crew members severally and once I explained why it was important they all gave me his name and description. I brought the log book back with me and the writing matches that on the notes he took on a bit of foolscap he left in the pirate book. Both are in the secretary.”

Barrington crosses over, unlocks the desk, pulls out both notepaper and book then settles down to scrutinising them.

“Appalling handwriting.”

“A little scruffy, yes. He commented rather wistfully on mine. I expect he can be taught though, it’ll improve.”

“It does appear to be the same hand. He turned a neat profit.”

“Yes, I noticed that too. As far as I can tell a great deal of it was handed over to the Brotherhood, the rest of it went back into the ship. It’s no wonder the Navy was searching high and low for him.”

“You’ve told them about these?”

“I offered to send them both but the Sir Charles says he’ll take my word for it for now. When Shay is better he’ll send Captain Cook over to speak with him.”

Barrington nods, replaces everything in the secretary, locks it up then comes back, gathering up the menus, seating charts, memorandums, timetables.

“I’ll go over these with Mrs Brown and Cook.”

“Thank you, Lane.”

Left alone I take out my journal and my whisky and move to the armchair near the bed. I stare at the blank pages but my thoughts refuse to be articulated. Perhaps I’m too tired.

So instead I turn back to earlier pages where I recorded a conversation I had with Monro the evening of young Finnegan’s funeral when we sat together drinking for hours into the night. Soon I find what I’m looking for and I trace the words. _Horror vacui_. Nature abhors a vacuum.

Without even reading the words, the sound of them and their weight in the air, all come back to me as if Monro were here and speaking them again - even the taste of the whisky, the same we drank that night.

_“Even the slowest death is sudden. Even the death whose onward march you watch daily for months on end and that you think you have prepared yourself for happens in an instant, in a space of time too short to be perceive. The moment of death is the smallest measure of time. There is no moment when the soul leaves the body. All you can see is that where there was life there is now nothing but absence. An absolute, irreversible chasm of absence that opens up almost beneath your own feet. And when the absence is too great and too sudden, we tip into the void because in that moment life cannot be sustained with so much missing from it and a part of our own living soul follows the other into death. To fill that great void of absence.”_

_“_ Horror vacui. _”_

_“Yes. And it never really goes away. Of course, we do what we always do when faced with the unpleasant or the difficult. We close our eyes and continue on our way, hoping to leave it all behind. But then a laugh in the crowd, a build and a gait, or the familiar back of an unfamiliar head and you suddenly see that you are not walking on solid ground but on a narrow, crumbling bridge and that the chasm is all around you, just one misstep away.”_

I knew of the death of his son all those years ago and the terrible toll it took on his mind and even his health in its immediate aftermath - after all, Monro and I have known each other for well over a decade and I unsuccessfully pressed Reginald to make Monro Grand Master above Lawrence Washington when it was felt we needed a firmer presence in the Colonies - but we had never spoken of it, not in any meaningful way, because I could see he is still cut to the quick by the remotest allusion to it.

I’d always suspected that the loss of this son underpinned his mentoring of Finnegan, who was energetic, deeply moral, Irish and the same age his son would have been and as a colonel in active service Monro must have endured the deaths of many other young men full of potential.

But it was the first time that I had _seen_ the wound in him.

Shay too has seen more than his fair share of death and he may share Monro’s fatal flaw. I saw something of it when he was in the bath trying to number the people he’d killed, and again when his first sight of Jack Weeks cracked his façade of normalcy.

Shay was touched by death.

And not just once.

When I placed that folded note in my safe it occurred to me that the ink on it was his last link to life. He’d only held on this long to see through the promise made to his ghosts that he would keep the manuscript from Achilles. What does that promise now hold _me_ to?

I’ve never wanted the destruction of the Brotherhood as an institution - their principles in their most basic form are not incompatible with ours and a better future can only be built by people of principle and idealists. But Achilles Davenport’s world views and mine will always be incompatible. He and Liam O’Brien cannot see past what I am to what I want to achieve. They think that because I’m rich and privileged I only seek to defend the interests of the rich and privileged.

Shay is probably right, Achilles will never stop looking for that manuscript. Keeping it hidden is the most passive form of protection - it is neither a foolproof or a permanent solution.

If - _when_ \- Shay does wake - what then? Will we discover that we were both completely wrong about each other and that what we felt was just lust and opportunity and whisky? Will he agree to the plans I’ve started to make for him? What will he need from me? What will be necessary to soothe the pains of his past? What will guarantee his happiness in the future? Ziio needed Braddock’s death and left me when that didn’t come soon enough°. Whose head will Shay ask for? Achilles’? Liam O’Brien’s? Both nearly - _knowingly_ \- killed him.

No matter. I want Shay back, whatever the cost.

The music dies away but just as I wonder if the night chill has driven the men away earlier than usual, the flute calls out again, only this time low, long and plaintive - a dirge whose simple notes are soon echoed by the fiddles and woven into a patient, obstinate yearning. A lament reaching up to the moon and stars°°.

The _Morrigans_ miss their captain.

I miss him too. I miss seeing him at my breakfast table, miss watching his tongue flick out a drip of melted butter, seeing the small, fleeting crease that forms between his brows when he tries to emulate the way I hold my teacup.

I miss seeing my image overlaid with the trust in his eyes, miss his inhuman capacity for forgiveness yet untouched by the many wrongs that have been done him, desperately miss the way he spoke to the best in me, grounding me in the self I aspire to.

I’m losing myself - witness what I did to O’Brien, all my self-control and discipline - all my _humanity_ \- shot after just a few days without Shay. Shay would have pleaded against it, abhorred it, abhorred _me_ for doing something that should fill me with disgust and self-loathing too but that I’ve tried and failed to regret, that has left me feeling at peace - no, worse, indifferent. I need Shay back so I can feel shame and indecency as I should, so I can tap the sources ofindignation and outrage that are bottled up and lost inside me.

Outside, the lament deepens and quickens into a phrase, then its variation, then another variation, and another, each one repeated before being chased away by the next in a tight, anxious pursuit, endless as they stalk one another, round and round, louder and stronger with each turn, set to the steady rhythm of heavy, deliberate stomping on frozen ground and clapping, chanting and sometimes a mad, joyous whoop. Now shouts of laughter and some of the men bay at the moon, heathen and primal and defiant - the reckless bravery of soldiers on the eve of a battle with the odds stacked against them, hags and goddesses dancing on the sabbath in the howl and sleet of a blizzard -and then the flute soaring above it all, pure and clear°°°.

Even from here I can hear the affronted snorts of the hot-blooded thoroughbreds. Half the household must be locked in superstitious terror and even I feel a scorching chill seep through my skin into my blood, soaking and burning my flesh down to the marrow.

Taking Shay’s hand in both of mine, I lean down to press my lips onto each of his knuckles in turn.

“Shay? Shay, you wouldn’t leave me? Not when I’ve just found you?”

Barrington is right. Something in me has been restless since Reginald’s death and nothing has helped but Shay. And nothing - not the house, not the horses, not the recognition of my peers nor even the vicious revenge I took on O’Brien - has helped Shay’s absence.

My mouth still against the back his hand, I feel the barest twinge beneath my lips and on drawing away, I see his index stir almost imperceptibly.

“Barrington!”

The door immediately opens.

“Fetch John.”

Turning back to Shay, I watch as the quiver of his lashes before he manages to half open his eyes and look at me, his beautiful dark eyes still so eloquent even veiled by exhaustion and his lowered lashes.

_Thank god._

Distant footfalls approaching and I know I’ll soon have to yield my place to John and Barrington.

I press a kiss onto the back of Shay’s hand then look at him.

“Shay? Was it for me? Did you come back for me?”

A slow, weary blink and his fingers tense again just as the door opens.

Barrington is the one who eases Shay’s hand out of mine and when I glance up at him, he places his warm hand on my shoulder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay, Shay is back! 
> 
> I'll be out of town tomorrow and I'm reshuffling the next few chapters because suddenly their flow is not making sense, so the next post will probably happen on Wednesday or more likely Thursday. If you have suggestions or requests, this is your chance!  
>  Questions always welcome <3
> 
> **______________________________**
> 
> * White borzoïs  
>  ** Sea shanties on the All Sounds of Assassin’s Creed tumblr [here](http://allsoundsasscreed.tumblr.com/tagged/sea%20shanty).  
>  *** Tavern songs on the All Sounds of Assassin’s Creed tumblr [here](http://allsoundsasscreed.tumblr.com/tagged/tavern%20song).  
>  ° For those of you who, like me, only play the console games and are confused by this or who can’t remember why, exactly, Ziio and Haytham didn’t stay together - well, the explanation is [here](http://assassinscreed.wikia.com/wiki/Kanieht%C3%AD:io#Braddock_Expedition).  
>  °° Inspired by [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXXK0TH2dV0) from the Tearaway soundtrack, and, if you’re feeling especially masochistic, Max Richter’s 'On the Nature of Daylight'.  
>  °°° Trevor Jones’ 'Promontory' from The Last of the Mohicans soundtrack (when is that set again?)


	9. John | Paying the Price

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Worried by the plans Haytham is making for Shay, John tries to sound the sincerity of Shay's feelings for Haytham.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I took some notes for this chapter and the previous one on the back of an envelope (in the time-honoured tradition of all organised people), then a couple of days ago I tidied my desk and naturally the envelope is now nowhere to be found.  
> A lot of chapter 8 was already drafted and I've gone back and added a few things from memory since it was posted. But this chapter is definitely a WIP, though I think all the main points are there. Sorry! When I find that envelope I'll rework this chapter. Until then, onwards! 
> 
> Huge thank you to everyone who left comments - comments make me happy <3

**JOHN**

_Kenway House, New York, December 1755_

 

Shay Cormac’s veiled gaze follows the thermometer as I hold it up to the light. Poor child. He’s barely managed to turn his head on the pillow and so tired himself out with the effort that his eyes are now barely open.

“No fever at all. You’re doing very well.”

“Thank you, doctor.”

“Do you think you can manage a little more of the beef tea?”

His eyes already closing, he shakes his head faintly, his features relax and he seems to slip back into sleep.

That he woke at all is a miracle and I’m only now taking stock of just how little I expected him to. And he’s far from saved. Sure, this is a definite improvement, he’s conscious and his condition seems stable but he’s still so weak that even a draught could disrupt his recovery and I’ve restricted access to him to prevent too much excitement or contamination, something that has proved difficult. The _young master_ ’s recovery could not have caused more joy if he really had been a son of this house rather than a passing stranger and I think there isn’t a maid in the house who hasn’t turned up here on some patently fictitious errand at one point or another.

A gentle knock.

_Kenway_. He cannot be kept away either.

As he steps in, Cormac’s eyes open again, a smile already flickering over his still face.

“Master Kenway…?”

“Shh, don’t talk, Shay. Just rest. I’m sorry, did I interrupt your meal? Shall I help?”

Picking up the consommé bowl, Kenway holds it to the boy’s lips and Cormac takes a few obedient sips, his eyes on Kenway.

Shay Cormac is still so weak that he can only stay awake for half an hour at the time and can manage no more than two sentences before feeling winded and yet the looks he gives Kenway would be enough to power the sun.

But then my omega patient looks at his shopkeeper husband with a great deal of unwarranted affection too.

“How do you feel, Shay?”

“Fine.”

Cormac’s gaze seeks mine for an instant and I can read plain as day how fearful he is that I will contradict him by telling the truth.

I make a show of gathering up his bowl and drinking glass and retreat to the lowboy between the bedroom door and the dressing room door that has been converted into a makeshift medicine chest and worktable, so that Cormac deceive Kenway unencumbered by my presence.

The master suite bears almost no resemblance to the room it was, all the furniture changed and rearranged, only the coffee table by the fire is still where it was. A working space has been set up between the large windows for Kenway who spends more time here than in his study downstairs, complete with a handsome campaign desk and cartonnière. while the other side of the room has been given over to my own requirements.

Rearranging my instruments, powders and potions, I see I’ll need to make up another batch of laudanum. I’ll ask Barrington to assist me so he can take note of the procedure and proportions, another skill he’ll no doubt find useful in time. I can hear the idle chatter on the other side of the room, Kenway’s prepared a selection of books - politics, economics, law, the classics, even something on hydrography. That causes a twitter of anxiety in Cormac but Haytham soon soothes it away.

I did try once more to convince Kenway that he should give Cormac a little breathing-room and some time alone so he may quietly recover and consult his own feelings, but his certainty that his presence reassures Cormac is unassailable and since Shay himself only seems too eager to have Kenway near him, I haven’t a leg to stand on.

Truth be told, I’ve almost tired of fighting it. Haytham did do his best for Cormac - he gave up _Barrington_ for him.

Haytham soon joins me.

“He’s fallen asleep. Are you joining me for luncheon, John?”

“No, Barrington has arranged for me to take something away with me. There are a few things I’d like to discuss with Master Cormac before I return to my practice.”

“Very well. At dinner then?”

“With pleasure.”

He can’t help a last glance in Cormac’s direction but the figure in the bed’s shadow is still so, after a final nod, he leaves.

Going back to the bed, I adjust its canopy of heavy silk then sit in my usual armchair.

Poor Shay Cormac may not have as restful a convalescence as he requires, I know Kenway is eager to settle his situation and I’d like to ascertain where Cormac’s interest lie and what his mental state is before he does so.

All this time he was unconscious gave me plenty of time to examine him and I easily found the signs of abuse Kenway had mentioned - evidently the doing of Cormac’s intended master as they’re nowhere near recent enough to be Kenway’s fault.

Kenway is not, I think, abusive by nature and I’ve almost reconciled myself to the idea that his abhorrent behaviour was the fruit of a kind of momentary insanity. However, that does not change the fact that Cormac was barely out of the grip of one alpha before he fell into the arms of another. Haytham says they were engaged for seven years at least - _seven!_ \- which means all of Cormac’s formative years as an adult were defined by his relationship with a dominant, abusive alpha. He has hardly known any other life, he may be ill-equipped to make meaningful choices for himself. Does he like Haytham as much as he seems to or is he simply attracted to the authority figure?

Kenway has told me, broadly, what he’s planning and though he and I have made our peace, I _must_ satisfy myself of Cormac’s feelings before he finds himself inextricably tangled up in Kenway’s schemes. He may entangle himself if he chooses, but I want to be sure he does so with open eyes and a free will.

Cormac stirs and when he opens his eyes I can see his gaze quickly running over his surroundings before he offers me a thin smile.

“Shay, you’re still a little too weak now but in a couple of days I could have you moved to my surgery, if you’d prefer.”

He looks perplexed.

“Would that be easier for you, doctor?”

Easier? No. I’ve only managed to scrape together the bare minimum required to keep one in-patient but it would be a far cry for the comfort, facilities and help available here.

“It might be easier for you. Kenway has released you from whatever agreement you had. Wouldn’t you prefer to be less beholden to him?”

“Don’t think I’ll ever stop feelin’ beholden to him, not sure I want to.”

“I’m not sure it’s healthy for you to feel that way, you’re vulnerable enough as it is. You’d be safe at my surgery.”

“Wouldn’t be safe. Not for me ’n’ not for you either.”

“Are you worried your partner would come for you?”

The long, steady look he gives me is unreadable. Finally he nods.

“Aye. Or his friends might.”

“Aren’t you afraid of Master Kenway?”

“No.”

“But you were?”

“Not afraid, more… nervous, like. For about an hour.”

“Even though he forced your hand? It was wrong of him to make you that offer, to put you in that position. He threatened you.”

Cormac looks weary.

“I was already threatened. Master Kenway says he’d’ve never left an omega, any omega, in a cell like that and I believe him. And you said yourself I’d’ve a night in the cold would’ve probably killed me.”

“Still, a truly generous, honourable man would have helped without asking anything in return.”

“What was the alternative? Master Kenway can’t hide that he’s attracted to me, and besides, I know what men want from me.”

“Haytham Kenway is not an animal, he knows how to control his instincts.”

“Oh aye, ’n’ so he did. But he’d’ve given me a bath and dinner and tea and treated me better than anyone ever has - everything exactly as he did do - and then when I was fed and warm and feelin’ grateful, I’d’ve _offered_ him what he wanted. Offered it ’til he accepted. Because I’d’ve known - see? - that he wanted it. And then I’d’ve had to pretend to enjoy it and ask for more, please. And then, when I thought that maybe he’d fucked me enough times to feel a little generous, I’d’ve asked him if maybe, after he’d had me a few more times, he’d see his way to lettin’ me go. And if he said yes but then didn’t act on it, or even if he said nothin’ at all, it would have just gone on and on - because I _offered_ , right? Because I’m still pretendin’ to enjoy it. And that means we can both pretend that I’m not still payin’ and payin’ and payin’ for something I might never get - not even sure exactly what.”

Cormac closed his eyes halfway through the narrative, as calm as if in sleep, and his drowsy voice only makes the matter-of-fact delivery, the uncompromising and unemotional analysis of it, more chilling. 

“Course he could’ve lied to get what he wanted without a fuss but there’s never any gettin’ away from that. S’always a risk when you deal with people you don’t know. Hell, even people who are trustworthy sometimes don’t see they’re promising things they can’t deliver.”

He turns his head on the pillow, breathing out through his nose.

“No, his way was better. He made me an offer, told me the price up front, then kept to it.And I kept to my end too. Now we knew we can trust each other”

“But it wasn’t a real offer, you didn’t really have a choice.”

“S’pose not but wasn’t Master Kenway’s fault. It just made my choice easier. I’m a criminal, see? The alternative was a lot worse.”

“Master Kenway says you’re a pirate. A valuable one.”

“Aye, maybe so, but neither of us knew it then.”

“And if you’d known then what you know now? Would you still have accepted? Knowing that you’re worth so much to the Navy and that you could have saved yourself another way.”

He smiles and lifts his lids just enough to look at me briefly.

“I’d’ve _begged_ him to take me with him”

Still smiling, he closes his eyes, perfectly serene and speaking slowly.

“I don’t trust the Navy yet but I trust Master Kenway. ‘Fore I met him, I didn’t know people could be so honest about what they want and what they’ll give for it. Most people just think it’s enough for them to do their best or just hope things will work out the way they want - guess I’m like that too. But Master Kenway’s probably never made a promise he wasn’t sure he could keep. And he’d never ask for somethin’ he didn’t know you could give him.”

What can I say to that?

“Shay, I… I’m not the enemy. I’m not trying to keep you from him…”

Another long, veiled look.

“I know. And I appreciate your concern. Only other time I ever saw a doctor was for this kind of thing and he was no help. Might’ve been different if he’d been like you. There’re plenty of people out there who promise all kinds of nice things - and mean it too - but who do worse things even though they mean well. Master Kenway says you’ve helped plenty of girls and omegas - reckon you’ve seen the sort o’ thing I mean. But Master Kenway’s not like that.”

I hadn’t wanted to ask him about the scars that speak of years of abuse, not yet, but I don’t have much time and he may never open up to me like this again.

“I know you’ve been mistreated.”

“That’s what paying in instalments looks like, and being cheated.”

His eyes are closed again and this time I know I have to let him sleep.

“All right. But remember that as your physician I feel responsible for you and I can make recommendations on your behalf. Know that you can lean on me.”

“Aye, I’ll remember that. Thank you.”

Downstairs, Barrington is waiting to take his orders for the afternoon.

“He’s tired but stable. Just keep an eye on the fever and the pain - no upsets, if he has a nightmare then wake him. There’s enough laudanum for any emergencies but he shouldn’t need any. And if you have time later we’ll make some more up together.”

“Yes, sir.”

Sitting in the coach, I turn our conversation over in my mind.

Shay Cormac is an astonishing creature. He’s so playful and affectionate with Kenway, I suppose I’d taken him for somewhat thoughtless, just the sort of vulnerable omega who needs protection. But now I start to see the strength that Kenway told me about and that I probably should have seen when he suffered through the removal of that bullet without so much as a whimper. Courageous and honourable, but both these traits might lead him to make just the sort of well-meaning mistake he spoke of.

I know the enormity of what Kenway is planning to ask him - the great big gift box of benefits tied up in strings he’s going to offer Cormac, strings that will be impossible to untangle and nearly as difficult to cut. I can’t help wondering how many instalments Shay will have to pay before he considers himself free again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter in Shay's POV!


	10. Shay | All to Myself

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Haytham and Shay finally have a little time alone together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shay's back! 
> 
> And wow, thank you for all the comments - it's so nice to wake up to them! 
> 
> Mostly fluff in this chapter, Shay's still recovering. Enjoy!

**SHAY**

_Kenway House, New York, December 1755_

 

_Wonder what time it is._

The sun set a while ago, then the last of the light went and since I keep dozing off and nobody’s been in to light the candles or lamps, so I’m left with just the glow of the fire. Doctor Meadows probably told them to let me sleep. He was here and gave me some more of whatever it is that he gives me before going down to dinner.

Maybe Master Kenway will come up after dinner.

_Wonder what day it is._

Nobody’s told me how many days I slept and, well, they don’t tell me much of anything, just that I should rest and not worry about anything. I think I must have been sick for a while though, I can see they’re all still a bit jumpy around me and Doctor Meadows says I gave Master Kenway a scare. They’re so good to me - Master Kenway, of course, but also Doctor Meadows and Barrington. Must’ve made a lot of work for them.

On the inside of my elbow I can feel the tiny scratchy prick of a feather in the pillow tucked under there. I try to shift a little but I’m so bolstered with pillows and weighed down with damask and furs that it takes a lot of wriggling just to heel* over half a degree.

The curtains on the bed match the blankets, dark blue with a bit of gold embroidery and if I squint when the light’s low like this I can pretend I’m looking at the night sky. There’s the Ursa Major up in that fold, and that big bright one that catches the light is Jupiter, and then underneath it the Corvus constellation. Can only really see them on a clear night, though.

_Wonder what the weather’s like._

They always draw the curtains whenever they open the windows so most of the time the air just smells of woodsmoke, orange blossoms and of the sandalwood box Barrington keeps all the doctor’s little bottles and things in on the bedside table. I keep wanting to ask someone to bring me a rock or a few bits of grass to smell but they’re worried enough as it is without me acting crazy.

A quiet knock and the door opens a crack.

“Master Kenway?”

“Heavens, did you _want_ to be left in the dark, Shay?”

“Not especially.”

“Hold on, I’ll get the matches. Meadows and Barrington are brewing potions downstairs so I have you all to myself for a while.”

He pulls off his coat then goes around the room, lighting candles, before turning back to me. That red waistcoat looks so good on him.

“Why are you in the middle of the bed now?”

“Dunno. Barrington and Meadows said it would be safer now I’m awake, but it’d be impossible for me to roll off with all these pillows anyway.”

Master Kenway laughs and comes to sit by me but even when I stretch my arm out he can’t comfortably reach it.

“Why are there so many pillows?”

“For my ribs. Doctor Meadows says I shouldn’t move ’till they’re stronger. Surprised there are any pillows left for the rest of you to sleep on.”

Even after moving the chair and some pillows, he can’t sit straight and still reach me.

“Apparently we have a near endless supply of pillows.”

I can believe that. There were seven at least on Master Kenway’s bed that first night.

Now he tries to settle on the bed, sitting then lying down, but there isn’t enough space.

“Confound the conspiring pair of them! This was intentional!”

Finally he has to lean right over, practically out of his seat, to take my hand in his and bring it to his mouth to kiss the back of it.

“They don’t like my being here.”

“Aye, I noticed that, but I don’t know why.”

I love the feel of his lips on my skin.

“Barrrington is worried about your effect on me and Meadows is worried about my effect on you.”

When I move my fingers to brush them over his lips and cheek he smiles and moves his mouth all over them, mouthing the knuckles, flicking his tongue into the creases, biting the pads, near the nail.

“Seems silly that they’re worried when we’re not - you and me, I mean.”

“You and I, Shay. I _was_ worried that _we_ would get lost in… well, the things we told each other, the way we met and what came before. But there is still an ‘us’, isn’t there, Shay?”

“Aye.”

Now he nuzzles my hand, his lips moving in a slow kiss over my palm before he moves onto the fingers, into their creases and the spaces between them.

Aye, there’s still an ‘us’. No point denying it when it’s right there between us, the clearest, brightest thing in the room.

Closing my eyes a moment, I can feel tiredness was over me again.

But there are things I need to know and this is my only chance to ask.

“You’re not angry? About…?”

“I’m not angry. I wasn’t angry then, and I’m not angry now.”

“But-.”

He folds my fingers over his hand, and brushes his lips over my knuckles again.

“We’ll discuss these matters in more detail in a few days when you’re stronger, Shay, but for now all you need to know is that the  _Morrigan_  is safe, her crew is looked after and I have everything else firmly under control. So don’t fret, hawkling, just rest.”

“The _Morrigan_ ’s safe?”

“She’s at Fort Arsenal, guarded by Redcoats and a few of my men. Jones says the crew are taking good care of her - just today he wrote that if they don’t stop polishing the brass they’ll soon wear it all off. When Gist gets back I’ll put him in charge at Fort Arsenal so you can liaise with him.”

Oh, she’s safe. My _Morrigan_ ’s safe.

My blood starts pounding in my head and I feel like I’ve lost my balance so I take a few deep, steading breaths.

“There now, Shay. Don’t upset yourself or John will have my head.”

Master Kenway pulls my hand down and drops kisses down the back of it to my wrist before turning it over and pressing a last slow, open-mouthed one against the inside.

The _Morrigan_ is safe.

A wave of warmth spreads out from chest and another from my wrist but there’s still a cold, hard chill in my stomach.

“And… Liam?”

He rests his forehead against the back of my hand, leaning on his elbows.

“Still in his cell but I think Achilles and I will soon come to an agreement.”

Liam’s safe too.

“Thank you.”

“It wasn’t for your sake, Shay. If it had been for your sake I’d have killed him.”

I can’t keep my eyes open anymore.

“He’s not… Liam’s not…”

“Rest, Shay, we can talk later.”

“Can you stay? I could hear you. When…”

“I thought you might. I hope you remembered it all, Iplan to test you on it soon.”

That makes me laugh but I’m not sure I actually _laugh_. I’m so tired. But I want to stay with him. I want him to understand.

“Liam’s not… he’s not bad.”

“I know, hawkling. Go to sleep, we’ll talk another time.”

The bed dips and I feel his hand then his lips on my forehead, then his head next to mine on the pillow.

“He’s just jealous. He wasn’t given any of the things you have.”

“I know all of that, Shay. I know I was given wealth and an education and my position as Grand Master was just handed to me. I know O’Brien wasn’t given any of these things. I know it isn’t fair.”

He sighs and his voice is so quiet, almost sad.

“But I’ve done everything I can with what was given to me to make the world better and I can’t help wondering what O’Brien would have done with those things if they had been given to him. When have Achilles and he ever _built_ anything with all the money you gave them or that they got from their gang activities? All they ever seem to do is try to undo all of my work. What difference would it have made if O’Brien had been Mentor instead of Achilles? And I’m sure Achilles has been teaching O’Brien everything he needs to know but what have they been teaching you? You knew nothing about me beyond my name and almost as little about the Brotherhood as about the Order.”

He’s right.

All that training at the homestead too, they only taught me enough to do what they wanted me to do - kill without asking questions.

“Tomorrow I’ll… read… those books.”

A puff of laughter in my ear.

“Will you go to sleep if I read to you? That pirate book should be nearby.”

“Aye. Please.”

I hold on while he gets the book but as soon as he starts reading I can’t help drifting away. Trying to stay away is like swimming against the current and whenever I come up for air I can hear his voice but then I have to dive under so I don’t get carried away, again and again, each time tiring more until I can’t fight it anymore and I slowly sink to the bottom. Then fighting pirates, not on the deck of my father’s ship but there on the seabed, moving slowly, slowly, in the heavy water, kicking up silt that hangs there, suspended, swirling and still, then tripping over a huge bower** hidden inside it. It’s tied to a length of hawser*** and so, pushing off, I follow it up, hand over hand over hand, kicking my legs to go faster when I hear his voice above the water, faster and faster until I burst through to the surface.

“Haytham?”

When I force my eyes open he’s smiling.

“I’m here, Shay. Do you want a drink?”

He helps me drink some of the barley water then looks at the glass. Has he been here the whole time?

“Can I have a sip of this or is there something in it?”

“No, whatever they’re giving me is in a bottle.”

He’s taken off his waistcoat and his cravat and undone the top buttons of his shirt and I can see the swallow of water go down his throat.

“How long…?”

“Oh, only an hour or so. Meadows checked in on you and he seemed happy. He’ll be back later.”

What will happen when I get better? I want to stay with him but how can I? And the manuscript. If Achilles and Liam find out it wasn’t lost at sea they’ll stop at nothing to get it back.

And don’t want anything to happen to Master Kenway. I couldn’t survive that, not if something happened to him that was my fault.

How can I stay and keep him safe? I can’t. I can only keep him safe if I take the manuscript and leave. But how can I leave him?

“Haytham…?”

“Mmm?”

But I don’t need to say anything, he’s already leaning over, his fingers in my hair and when he presses his mouth onto the bridge of my nose I nudge up and finally, finally, his lips on mine, soft and gentle and gone too soon. Then another kiss, deeper, and this time I taste him again, sweet and sharp from the lemon in the barley water.

But too soon he pulls away.

“Haytham?”

“We have to stop, Shay. Your mouth goes pink so easily, John will take one look at you and know exactly what we’ve been up to and then where will we be?”

“I’ll tell him it was my fault.”

“But how does that help _me_? John was never going to be angry with _you_.”

I can’t help a huff of laughter. He really means it.

He glances at the door a moment.

“He’s in his room, reading. We should have a little time. Right, tongues only, Shay.” 

“How did you…?”

The question is lost when he swipes the tip of his tongue along my bottom lip and I slip my tongue out to meet his. And that’s it - just our tongues playing together, tip to tip, caressing, twining, until he moves closer, pulling mine into his mouth and sucking on it.

How is he real?

How can he be Haytham Kenway, Grand Master of the Templar Order, and _this_ at the same time? He was more worried about me than anyone but he’s the only one who doesn’t act like I’m back from the dead.

“There, I think we’ll just have to make do with that for now, hawkling.”

Just now, it’s enough. The taste of him still on my tongue and his nose nudging mine - it’s enough.

“Do you think you could bear more company? Jack Weeks and Gist will be back soon, they’ve already said they’d like so see you again. Would you like that?”

“Aye. Please. And… could I sit in an armchair? So I can look out of a window.”

“I’m sure even John won’t think that too unreasonable. I’ll have a word with him.”

“And you?”

“Of course, Shay. Barrington might disapprove and Meadows might scold, but they won’t keep me away from you.”

He moves back into the chair.

“Shall I read to you again?”

“Please.”

And when I stretch out my arm again, palm up, he reaches out and lays his fingers across mine, holding the book open with his other hand as he continues to read about the plunder and burning of the _Protestant Caesar_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * heel: sideways inclination of a ship. 
> 
> ** bower: a type of anchor, usually at the bow (front) of the ship. 
> 
> *** hawser: really, really thick heavy rope.


	11. Hope | Consensus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back at the homestead, Achilles and his master assassins discuss their options and become divided over the course to take.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Belated Bastille Day, Arno!  
> [We're still celebrating your escape!](https://youtu.be/732T4bLlao8)
> 
> The first of a couple of short, plot-advancing chapters then back to self-indulgent Shay-Haytham fluff. 
> 
> Reminder:  
> Fort George is the governor's residence in the south of the city.

**HOPE**

_Davenport Homestead, Massachusetts, December 1755_

 

“We all have questions and uncertainties concerning the current dilemma but I cannot hold off giving Kenway a definite answer any longer.”

A robin lands on the snow piled ten inches high on the balcony and looks at us, tilting his head as if puzzled by the empty chair on Achilles’ right.

“How can we decide? We don’t know anything!”

Chevalier is exasperated. Barely tolerant of Shay’s presence in the Brotherhood at the best of times, he’s cursed Shay every hour since the theft of the manuscript.

“My people say Thompson and Caraway were brought before the magistrates from the barracks near Fort George. I think we can assume Liam is still there. And Shay too, if he’s still alive. I saw the state he was in - if Liam didn’t get then neither did he.”

“And what about this?”

Chevalier stands and slams a sheet of paper onto the table. A wanted poster - £5’000 for the captain of the _Phantom Queen_. I’ve seen it before. There have been variations of it all over New York for months with new ones put up every day.

“What if he has turned himself in? Look - it says ‘dead or _alive_ ’. _We_ know what Shay is like, _we_ know he has the manuscript, but for £5’000 the Royal Navy only need him to be a navigator, a traitor and a _saboteur_ \- and we know he can do that.”

He sits down again, eyes still on the paper.

“Is it a coincidence the fort and the ship were taken just after Shay and Liam were captured?”

Is it? Shay loved his ship more than anything in the world, I can’t believe he would have just given her up.

“Shay and Liam were stopped by that patrol just outside the fort, they probably attracted the Redcoats’ attention to it by mistake. It must be coincidence, Chevalier. Look, this is good news. Shay was caught over a week ago. The Navy wouldn’t still be looking for him if they knew they had him. He’s still a pirate. Would you give yourself up if you were in his place?”

“No, but I do not pretend to understand the mind of a cabbage farmer.”

And I still don’t understand what went through Chevalier’s mind when he decided to shell the homestead - how he could think engulfing us all in mortar fire would somehow help stop Shay without damaging the manuscript.

“Besides, they got rid of the other two _idiots_ , why keep Shay?”

“When I saw him last he was too weak to be moved. Thompson and Caraway were charged, sentenced to hard labour then shipped off north that same afternoon. One of our men in Albany he thinks he saw them in a group of other prisoners.”

“William Johnson is building a fort near Lake George.”

We all turn to Kesegowaase who has been sitting immobile and silent, arms folded across his chest and gaze kept so low he might have been sleeping.

“You say Shay was hurt. They would not use him for such things.”

I nod.

“That’s true. There’s also the possibility that he…”

“That he died?”

Yes, that he died. I wonder if it wouldn’t be the best thing for us. Then we could focus on getting Liam back.

“But it is also possible that Shay is still alive and well, having traded some information to Kenway or the British, is it not?”

“It’s possible. But he didn’t have the manuscript on him, Chevalier. His clothes were in tatters - he said he lost it after the fall and I believe him.”

“So, we forget about Shay and the manuscript and negotiate with Achilles for Liam’s return?”

Kesegowaase grunts.

“Liam would not want us to go grovelling to Kenway for his sake.”

“Are you suggesting we just leave him in prison?”

“No. But we all lose face by making a deal with Kenway.”

“So what? We break him out of the barracks? There are hundreds of soldiers there! Even if we could do it Kenway will know it was us, he will have every one of those solders after us! We already lost the Fort and the ship!”

Achilles signals for quiet.

“We must not fight amongst ourselves, that only benefits our enemy. Now, we seem to be making some progress. We agree it is unlikely that Shay escaped the redcoats and that he did not have the manuscript with him. So, the manuscript is either lost or hidden.”

Kesegowaase says nothing, Chevalier shrugs and nods.

“It also seems likely that Shay is either at the barracks with Liam or dead.”

Another nod from Chevalier.

“Well then, could we mount an attack to try to get one or both of them back?”

Chevalier shrugs impatiently.

“I can use the _Gerfaut_ and some of our other ships to fire on the barracks, that will create a distraction but it can only be a distraction - they have added more canons to the battery, they can be ready in minutes and I cannot sit and take fire from so many guns at close range.The Navy’s ships are just a few miles away, they will not forgive the attack, they will chase us for weeks, maybe months.”

He pauses and looks first at Kesegowaase then at Achilles.

“Somebody has to lead the men in an attack on land to get Shay, at least, back. We have to know exactly where he is before we try it. And it will be a stupid attempt. As difficult as it will be to get, it will be even harder to get out - we cannot hope to succeed without heavy losses. It means attacking not only the Templars but also the British. A direct attack. We will become their enemies. They will retaliate, they will attack our allies in New York, they will attack our ships, they might even attack us here. We sent Liam and the others to bring back Shay and they were caught. How much more are we prepared to lose?”

Achilles nods, deep in though.

“So, we have to get Shay back but we cannot do it fighting. How can we do it then?”

“You must speak with Kenway, Mentor. Find out if Shay is alive. If he is, he should be returned to us with Liam - after all, they’re intended. If Shay is not at the barracks, we can try to get him back. Almost anywhere else would be easier to attack.”

Kesegowaase grunts.

“Why does it matter where Shay is? If the manuscript is lost we will find it. If somebody else has it then we will recover it. We do not need Shay for this. We need Liam.”

“You say this as if it hadn’t taken us _years_ to get the box and manuscript! We’ve already spent weeks looking for the manuscript and found no sign of it and every day that passes we draw the attention of the Templars and we give them a chance to find the manuscript before us!”

“We give them that chance every day we sit here deciding what to do without ever acting.”

Achilles calls for quiet again.

“So, you would simply forfeit Shay?”

Kesegowaase has barely had time to nod before Chevalier is throwing up his hands.

“That’s ridiculous!

And on and on and on.

After all that has happened between Liam and Kesegowaase it seems deeply ironic that Kesegowaase should now find himself defending Liam. But he won’t do it for long. He’s not really defending Liam, he’s just following his own logic. Though he is part of the Brotherhood, Kesegowaase has always left its running up to Achilles and Liam - all of us, in fact, choosing instead to focus on his work with the native tribes and teaching our trainees to survive in the frontier.

And he’s right. Liam will be furious at being traded like a bag of sugar. But I feel it too, the keen embarrassment at having lost the manuscript so soon after we announced to all our Brothers throughout the world that we had found both it and the box _and_ succeeded in making them work. We have said nothing yet, Achilles probably hopes the manuscript will be found soon enough that it won’t matter but Kesegowaase is right, every day that we let pass without telling our allies and Brothers what has happened is a day of intelligence lost.

Suddenly Kesegowaase stands, his chair scraping the ground as he pushes it back.

“I agree to whatever you decide. Just tell me what I must do.”

And with that he simply walks out.

I’ve lost my only ally.

Achilles turns back to Chevalier and I.

“And what do you think Kenway will ask for?”

Chevalier just shrugs.

“Nothing we can give him.”

“No. Nothing we can give him. If he has the manuscript, he will ask for the box. If he has neither he will ask for both. And of course we can give him neither.”

“Mentor, is it wise to see Kenway if we know we cannot agree to his terms? Won’t that endanger Liam?”

“We have no choice, Hope. We must find out if he has Shay. That is the most important thing.”

Achilles reaches over and pats my hand.

“If Kenway was going to kill Liam, he would have done it by now. I think he will be safe a little longer and he would understand us trying to recover Shay. He understands how important the manuscript is.”

I don’t.

Sacrificing Shay for a manuscript that may no longer exist seems callow enough but Liam? We would never have had either the manuscript or the box without Liam’s efforts. There would be no Brotherhood without him. Chevalier, Kesegowaase and I - even Shay - are all here because he found us.

What will our Brotherhood become if we lose him?


	12. Liam | Hidden Wounds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Liam is still licking his wounds when Hickey comes calling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the lovely comments! <3 And sorry for the delays in getting the last couple chapters up - Hope's chapter just wouldn't come together and in the end I decided to just post it and move on. 
> 
> Warnings for descriptions of delayed shock and dark thoughts.

**___________________________________________**

_The wound is not deep, but you know it exists - and that is enough._

– Khepri’s Sting - Destiny –

**___________________________________________**

**LIAM**

_Arsenal, New York, December 1755_

 

A dull thud as the bag of food lands just inside my cell along with two canteens.

“Your ration.”

They’ve started feeding me again but I couldn’t even look at food so I’m on a liquid diet of whiskey and sugar water.

_Sugar water_ \- like an omega in heat.

This time, I’m determined to eat so I grab the bag and open it but at the thick reek of cheese and the cloying sweet-sick smell of apple my stomach rises up, claws its way up throat and into my mouth and nose, heavy and acrid, to stop anything else from filling them, and I just have time to close the bag and push it away, swallowing hard, before it overwhelms me.

_God, I’m pathetic._

I _can_ eat. There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m not sick, not hurt, I didn’t even bleed, I feel no pain, just a constant discomfort, a soreness and a throbbing ache low in my gut, _inside,_ where I’m still bruised from-

“Not again!”

The guards grumble and curse as I retch into my bucket and the smell of bile fills the air.

Days later I’m still like this.

The guards are disgusted with me but don’t seem too worried. Not sure how I feel about that. I want them to leave me alone, aye, but what did that Hickey person tell them?

He can’t have told them… And I don’t think they saw anything.

I don’t know how I got back into my clothes that day. I remember doing it but I didn’t feel it, I only watched myself do it. My whole body, every one of my limbs, all of my muscles cold and light, like when you pick up something small or thin with cold-numbed fingers and no matter how much you squeeze you still think you’re holding it as delicately as a butterflies’ wing. I don’t remember feeling my body move or the texture or weight of my shirt, my breeches, my coat, in my hands. I only remember thinking I was still filthy with sweat and not caring.

I continued to not care even after Hickey left and the guards came back. I think they spoke to me but I couldn’t hear them. I was sitting on my overturned bucket and staring at a knot of thread in the fabric of my coat and thinking that under my clothes I was filthy and wondering why I didn’t care and trying to make myself move but without success until the all the bones went to water inside me, taking my balance, and I slipped off the bucket, falling on my arse on the ground with the bucket between my knees and when I did I felt… leaking… in my-

This time, nothing but a dry retch and a thread of saliva and the burn in my throat. The guards don’t even look up from their card game.

That was the first time I vomited - when I felt the sticky damp in my trousers and realised what it was.

I’ve killed men with my own hands, killed them in combat and killed them in stealth, with a knife between the shoulder blades or between the ribs. I’ve fought pirates and soldiers on the decks of wildy rocking ships, awash with blood and sea water, when each slippery step might mean death and when each wave threatened to topple me. When Achilles first brought me to the homestead, I built my cabin myself, the same one Shay and I lived in - I felled each tree, fashioned each plank and board and nailed them all together, caulking every crack and mending the roof until the whole finally kept out the wind and kept in the heat. I’ve been burnt, slashed and stabbed and I still have a ragged scar at the base of the annular of my right hand from when I had to pry my foot out of a bear trap and the binding I’d wrapped around my hand slipped.

But the hardest thing I’ve ever done was force myself to turn this bucket over so I could empty myself of sickening void inside me and when nothing came, I forced myself to settle on top of it again, pushing past the cramps and pain that bit and seared the muscles I could feel again, pushing down my breeches, and leaning back against the wall because my shaking legs wouldn’t hold me, my sore arse burning where the rim of the bucket pressed against the skin rubbed raw by the rope, forced to face the guards also so they wouldn’t see what was leaking out of me.

I must have spent hours squatting like that, my head bowed over, forehead pressed onto my arms that I kept wrapped around my knees to keep them still and together, straining my still-sore body and the same still-aching muscles again and again to get _him_ out of me and every time I heard or thought I heard the soft splat of his filth leaving me drop by drop, my gooseflesh was washed with cold sweat as the rage that lanced through me changed to white-hot, shivering relief. And all the time, tears were streaming down my face - tears that I couldn’t stop, that I couldn’t even feel myself crying.

The guards laugh and groan as they throw down their hands and one of them makes a show of raking in the piles of pennies and farthings.

The night watch always play cards. They were playing cards that evening too, while I sat in my corner suffering.

For hours and hours, until they threw me a new canteen and I found I could just reach it without toppling. Tepid tea. Standing in the darkest corner I finally, slowly, washed myself with it as well as I could without taking off my clothing, pushing up one sleeve then another, unbuttoning my shirt, scrubbing away the sweat and stink, seeing for the first time the bruises and rope burns all over me.

The bruises are already fading, the burns will take longer but they’ll heal too, and one day there will no trace at all of what happened to me.

The scrape of chairs as they all stand to attention as that lout, Hickey, appears in the doorway.

“Right, lads, I need a minute. Orders from the top.”

_And they leave._

No questions, no demand for written orders, _nothing_ , even though the fool must be right at the bottom of the chain of command, if that ill-fitting uniform means anything.

That’s Templar influence for you.

There he is, the worst sort of layabout, one we wouldn’t even employ to muck out the stables at the homestead, but pin a Templar cross on him and suddenly regulars and even a bloody commissioned officer obey him at the drop of a hat.

Leaning against the door jamb, wiry and lean - as lean as Shay but oozing alpha out of every disgusting pore. I could break him with one hand, but not now - now I’m stuck in here while he half-smiles and his gaze goes to the discarded food bag on my cell floor.

That’s where it was. The pool of my sweat and drool and tears. Under the food bag.

_Does he remember it?_

He turns to me and one corner of his mouth crooks up.

_Aye, he remembers._

“Ol’ ‘Ayfam ‘eard you stopped eating. ‘E’s worried you’re pining after ‘im. Asked me to come ‘ere to bring you some chicken soup and cheer you up a bit. Says ‘e’s sorry ‘e can’t come ‘imself.”

Unslinging the canteen over his shoulder, he comes right up to the bars, slips his arm through them and lets the canteen hang from two outstretched fingers, swinging slightly.

I should take it. After being half-starved for days, I can already feel myself getting weaker.

Instead, I just watch the canteen swing back and forth.

“Maybe later then.”

He slings it back over his shoulder and drops into an abandoned chair, kicking his feet up on the table, pushing aside a couple of tankards with the toe of his mud-plastered boots.

“Where’s Shay?”

“Shay? Oo’s he?”

He bends his knees up almost to his chin to grab the nearest tankard, peers into it then swirls it quickly before taking a swig.

“My intended. Kenway took him.”

He throws his head back and laughs so hard that for a moment I’m sure the chair will topple backwards.

“Took your omega as well, did ‘e? The dog!”

_As well._

What else did Kenway take from me?

Hickey takes another swig of ale then wipes his mouth on his sleeve.

“I’m sure the boss is taking good care of ‘im though, don’t worry. ‘E took care of you, dinn’e? The state of that floor when ‘e was done with you… No wonder ‘e’s worried ‘bout you now, you showed ‘im a right good time.”

Oh aye, Kenway enjoyed himself.

But did I enjoy it? I tell myself I hated it but even whenever I close my eyes I see the white streaks of my come, as bright against the dark insides of my lids as they were against the floor, just like Hickey says.

And Shay? Does that mean Shay enjoyed what I did to him? Or Kesegowaase? But no, Shay never came, not once in all the years we were together.

“Nah, well. Don’t know nuffin’ ‘bout your friend. Don’t go up to the big ‘ouse much.”

Is he lying? Could he really not know Kenway took in an Assassin? Or did Shay die days ago as Kenway said he would?

“Nah, I work for William Johnson, see.”

Perhaps he doesn’t know. How could a Hickey ever be important enough to be told anything?

“Good thing it was the big man found you and not ol’ William. Wants to skin you alive, ‘e does. He knows about what you did at Fort Henry, see? Oh, ‘e’s furious, ‘e is. If ‘e ‘ad ‘is way you’d be ‘ung right quick.”

“ _Hanged._ ”

He looks at me out of the corner of his washed-out eyes and the corner of his mouth curls up again.

“All right. ‘Anged, then.”

Oh aye, what I did at Fort Henry makes me an enemy of the British, not just the Templars, and, if they can prove it, could get me hanged within hours in Pennsylvania and even in New York it won’t take more than a few days.

“But ‘Ayfam won’t let ‘im. So don’t you worry your pretty ‘sad, sweet’art. ‘E’s made a deal with your boss. Says they’re going to meet soon to trade you.”

_What?_

Why me? Achilles must know Kenway has Shay. Why not try to get Shay back? Why trade me at all? I would understand him sending someone to break me out or even leaving me here but trading me? Like a heifer or a sack of tobacco?

“I don’t understand it either but what does that matter, ‘ey? At least you get to live and fight another day.”

Hickey comes back over and holds the canteen out to me again, still smug and unafraid, still frosty-eyed and still with a pistol tucked in his belt.

But this time I have appetite for it and I can feel the warmth right through the leather when I take the canteen.

“S’pose you’ll be coming after me one of these days.”

Again that crooked smile.

Soon after he leaves the guards come back, moaning about having to build more redoubts as they settle down to deal a fresh hand.

Opening the canteen, I take a long swallow of the still-hot soup, holding back the few small bits of chicken and carrot to crush them under my back teeth as the warmth of it runs down into my body. Somehow, I feel more settled than I have since I was first brought here.

How do they know about Fort Henry? Thompson and Caraway didn’t know about that. Even Shay didn’t. How far has the Order infiltrated the Brotherhood? And _how_?

_Christ. Where did it all go wrong?_

I should seen the search for the Piece of Eden through with Shay, I told Achilles so. But he’s right too. Shay was always going to have to carry out a mission alone, to prove that he _could_ and to prove he’s trustworthy. Achilles pointed out that only I could help Kesegowaase mount a successful attack against the British and that if Shay couldn’t be trusted with a simple ‘fetch and carry’ mission then he could never become a master assassin - and I couldn’t disagree with any of that.

I know Shay better than I know myself. Or least I thought I did. That’s why I wanted to believe that he wasn’t lying to me when he said he didn’t have the manuscript. That’s why I let Hope convince me he was telling the truth - how could he _possibly_ still have the manuscript after the fall and everything else he’d been through?

But he must have still had it.

We’ve searched up and down the coast for it, Chevalier and his best men have been checking and rechecking the sea currents, projecting where the manuscript was likely swept away, where it might have washed up. All for nothing. Which can only mean it was never there to be found, because somehow Shay still had it.

The manuscript, the box, all the Precursor artefacts are as indestructible as the Pieces of Eden themselves. Achilles even believes they can somehow keep themselves safe, passing from person to person through the ages, hiding when there’s danger and reappearing when it’s safe. I wouldn’t go that far but I do believe the artefacts can’t simply be burned or dissolved or smashed or otherwise destroyed or even broken. How else could they have survived for thousands of years the way they have? Whatever was in the Temple near Port-au-Prince is probably still there, waiting in the ruins.

There for the taking, for whoever finds it first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Looking forward to writing the next few chapters so hopefully won't get too impeded by life and other silliness. 
> 
> Thank you for reading! <3


	13. Haytham | Undone, Unwound, Unravelled

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Having left his sickbed, Shay enjoys a little warmth and sunshine with Haytham.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Out of the darkness and into the light! Enjoy!

**HAYTHAM**

_Kenway House, New York, December 1755_

 

Carefully, one-handed and clumsy, I turn a letter from Sir Charles over in my hand to read the back of it, holding it up to the shaft of bright golden afternoon light streaming in through the study windows.

Reading is the only thing I can do, laid out on the couch as I am, with one arm pinned by Shay who is settled to the side and on top of me, his head on my shoulder, the puff of his breath against my neck, his long legs half off and half tangled with mine. He’s slightly too heavy and entirely too long for this to be absolutely comfortable but that’s all forgotten in the contentment of having him safe and easy so near me.

Shay’s breathing is slow and regular but he’s rubbing one of his feet against me and the fingers of the hand resting on my chest twitch occasionally so perhaps he’s only half asleep.

He still needs so much sleep and still tires easily but he can walk unaided now, he can manage the stairs, he can talk and laugh, he can stay awake for more than ten minutes at the time. Today he’s even dressed in real clothes rather than in the nightshirt and loose flannels he’s worn since he woke. His health is improving in leaps and bounds, confirming what I’ve known since the first moment I laid eyes on him - that he’s a strong, active creature, fundamentally healthy and energetic. Only I now also know that his flesh should be cool to my touch and that ordinarily no flushes of colour mar the Circassian pallor of his complexion.

This long convalescence, the continued care John and Barrington take of Shay and their frequent checks on him are a constant reminder of just how unwell Shay was. While he was fighting the fever and unconscious I didn’t allow myself to fear losing him. And yet, now that the threat has passed, it seems to grow more real in my mind with each passing day. And each day brings Shay closer to recovery and the time when he’ll ask to be once again allowed to risk his life for one cause or another.

Oh, yes, I know Shay is as unlikely to go into early retirement as I am. And I shall have to let him fly free and face whatever dangers he must. I must learn to let him go. So I’m indulging my need to care for him now while I can.

Shay shifts a little and his long fingers curl in, as if he’s grasping for something, and I immediately feel the impulse to kiss them. After days and days of care, they’re very nearly free of calluses and chilblains and I’ve already put in orders for several pairs of gloves for him so he does not develop new ones.

“Haytham…”

Another curl of his fingers and I can’t help smiling.

“I’m here, hawkling.”

I bring his hand up to brush the tips against my lips.

Shay’s fingers now splay as they touch my mouth then my cheek.

“You’re real,” he murmurs, as though in sleep.

“Quite real, yes.”

The tension in his body eases and he lapses back into sleep. I turn my head as far as I dare without waking him to smell his hair, my way of grounding myself in his continued existence.

Our relationship is a complicated, tangled thing. Shay is already bound to me by ties of gratitude, debt, necessity, perhaps even fear. I feel bound to give him every reassurance of my protection and support, and though the situation he’s in predates our meeting, seeing him through his crisis has only deepened my sense of responsibility. And my possessiveness.

These things can never been unravelled. My being a Templar Grand Master cannot be undone, his past as an Assassin cannot be unwound, the circumstances of our meeting cannot be unlived. But when I put an idea to Shay I don’t want him to agree out of any sense of obligation or threat, I want him always to feel he has a real choice.

Fortunately, what we _feel_ for each other is so clear and sharp that it might cut through all of this.

Shay will have to make a choice, even though he’s still fragile. Whatever he decides, I’ll need time to make arrangements one way or the other, so if I wait much longer I risk jeopardising his future.

And every option available to him will be a painful one. Even the best outcome I’ve worked so hard to put together for him comprises sacrifice. It will mean putting the final nail in the coffin of his relationship with Liam O’Brien, Achilles, the Brotherhood, everything that has made him who he is. It will make him an enemy to his Brothers - worse, a traitor, and of the very worst sort, ready to betray his own principles for convenience and comfort.

The tickle of Shay’s lashes against the underside of my jaw comes just before he rolls a little, pulling himself onto my chest more securely, surveying me from his vantage point.

“Hello again, hawkling.”

Shay doesn’t answer and instead plants a clumsy, sleepy kiss onto my mouth, full of familiar ease. As I return it and as he wakes, however, it deepens into something more intimate, Shay leaning his forearms onto my collarbones and sinking his fingers into my hair as I work my arm free and run crabbed hands over his back, pressing my fingertips into his flesh.

Oh, how he revels in my desire for him, secure in it. He knows he can wake it in an instant and that I’ll allow him control over it, so he draws it out, deep and lazy, pausing to nudge my nose with his before returning, despotic and demanding, desultory and teasing until I rise up to meet him, lungeing and snapping at the tongue he baits me with.

“Sorry, I mussed your hair.”

He’s not the least bit sorry.

Dark-eyed and panting between parted lips and lightly-clenched teeth, he gazes into my eyes a moment, predatory and vulnerably, before leaning his forehead against mine then crumpling onto my chest, exhausted by this surfeit of emotion. And when I brush a fingertip over the hand he has splayed high on my chest, so very near my heart, he twines his fingertips with mine.

“What were you doing?”

“Reading a letter from Sir Charles, it concerns you, as it happens. He’s immensely flattering about your _Morrigan_ and you. Captain Cook only briefed him on the ship and the logbook yesterday. Here, look.”

Propping him up with my arm, I watch him flatten the missive over my chest and savour the quirk of his lips as his gazes travels over the lines.

“Shay, I can understand why they’d want to put a stop to your activities, but can you think of why they’d be eager to recruit you?”

“Expect they need a navigator. And their charts of the Gulf– Did they take my charts?”

“Your maps? Yes, Captain Cook has had his people making copies night and day.”

Shay lets out a snort of laughter that rings out like a shot and his ravening mirth stirs something deep in my loins.

“Aye, I’ll bet he has! If their charts’re anythin’ like yours they probably can’t make it past Glace Bay without wreckin’ their pretty frigates!”

His attention turns back to the letter but my mind is still on his earlier comment.

“Is the Gulf important?”

“Oh aye, can’t take Quebec without it.”

_Ah. That explains it._

In my negotiations with Sir Charles and the Navy I was almost unnerved by how generous the terms I was able to negotiate were but now Shay has given me the key to it.

Of course the British must have control of the Gulf to take and keep Quebec. Certainly there will be land-based attacks from the south but they must, at the very least, be able to cut off French supply lines to the north if they’re to have any hope of avoiding a long, entrenched engagement. Even with the forced removal of the Acadians, the British are not in friendly territory there, if anything it has made the resistance movement there more determined.

“And you think they’ll ask you to be their navigator?”

“Aye, they know they need one. The Gulf is difficult to navigate, plenty of places where it’s easy to run aground, ‘specially in those great big frigates. They know that. They’ve tried to take the Gulf before, back in ’11.”

“I take it they failed.”

“You could say that.”

Again, something low in my loins flares up at that dark streak of humour in him and his easy knowledge of something I have only a tenuous grasp of. I _admire_ him.

“They won’t try it again without better charts and the best navigator they can get.”

He turns the letter over and continues reading. Not the whole letter is about his ship and it does contain some sensitive information but just now that doesn’t seem to matter.

“Could you be that navigator, Shay?”

Now he looks up from the letter to meet my gaze.

“Reckon I’m as good as any and probably better than anything the French or British have. When she’s not especially loaded the _Morrigan_ draws less than six feet - she can go places other ships can’t go, except fishing boats.”

No wonder Sir Charles was so quick to waive Shay’s past ‘misdemeanours’ and why Captain Cook so praised the _Morrigan_ ’s construction and shallow draught.

“Do you need me to be?”

“I’ve made no promises but I expect the Navy will ask once they’ve confirmed your identity.”

“And then?”

“That will depend but I don’t intend to force you into anything.”

Astounding that someone of Shay’s merit should have gone unnoticed for so long and I realise that Shay’s own reputation helped him as much, if not more, than any influence I exerted. Sir Charles, Captain Cook and the other Navy officers I’ve dealt with have spoken of Shay with far more deference than would be due to a vulgar pirate and now I see why. Their gratitude to me, too, is unfeigned as I seem to have unwittingly brought them the very thing they most wanted and needed. A living treasure.

Looking up at him, my ardour for him redoubles.

Shay is still staring at me, lips slightly parted, sharp-eyed. My feelings for him must be written all over my skin and lips, burned into my eyes, and he leans in to brush a chaste, deliberate kiss onto my mouth.

“I like that you want me. I’ve never liked being wanted before.”

I already have my hands buried in his hair to pull him down to me when there’s a knock at the door.

“Masters Gist and Weeks have arrived.”

As Shay glances at the door, I press a kiss against his jawline.

“Come, I have a surprise for you.”

After we come untangled, we go out into the main hall where Gist and Weeks are still shedding coats and scarves even though they haven’t come from far, then we all make our way to a place Shay has never been before.

When Shay first steps into the orangerie, he instantly takes an involuntary step back into my arms, visibly awed. The orangerie’s foundations were two large walled gardens at the back of the house, which are now punctuated by a sequence of windows and enormous glass-paned doors and sheltered by a sloped roof opened up by even larger glass plates, each 7’ by 4’, the largest in the city.

A glittering expanse of snow is visible from the glass doors at the foot of which over a foot of snow is still accumulated, and the sunshine that reverberates off of it is almost blinding. The air is warm and balmy and fragrant with scent of orange blossoms while from the adjoining garden we can dimly make out the strident hoot of the peafowl wintering there over the gurgle of water in the fountains.

“Go on, Shay. ”

A gentle shove and he’s off exploring slowly, with Gist and Weeks in tow.

This is close as he’ll get to being outdoors for some time and while I will never be able to give him anything approaching the freedom and untamed vastness of the Davenport homestead, I can already how childishly pleased he is at seeing blue sky above his head and at having dirt under his feet, wandering off the stone path to see the prints his slippers leave in the barely-damp soil, his happy paralysis as he glances at the windows, the fruit trees and ornamental shrubs, the pond, unable to decide which to go to next.

And all the while the sun beats down from above and all about.

The three of them are already chattering happily, Gist going over to a window to point out the bungalow in which he and Jack live, and when Shay joins him he places both his hands agains the glass and breathes onto them before looking back at me over his shoulder, laughing gaily.

“Perhaps Master Cormac can come and have dinner with us soon.”

Shay’s gaze is so bright and hopeful.

“I’m sure that can be arranged, Master Gist. Will you be wanting food brought in from our kitchens.”

Gist laughs and slaps his thighs.

“Well, I just don’t think Jack and I could produce anything of the quality you’re used to here!”

With that he throws an arm about Shay’s shoulders and they turn back to the window.

In this too Shay is diminished. Gist and Weeks may be his only real company until his situation is settled and he’s strong enough for formal entertaining. Fortunately, they still all get along as well as they did the first time they met. Gist and Weeks have behaved very well in the last few days after Meadows finally allowed Shay some visits. They must wonder at Shay and perhaps even guess something of his past occupation, and as I’ve made no particular effort to hide my feelings for Shay, they must have some inkling of that aspect of my interest in him. And yet they have asked nothing and never let any doubt colour the attitude towards him, never done or said a thing to make things awkward.

They’ve kept Shay company during meals when John and I have been out, they’ve told him about the Order and discussed current events with him and generally done what they could to cheer him. Something easily done since Shay has retained the buoyancy of spirits I admired in him from the first.

“What do you think of Shay, Jack?”

“He’ll make a fine addition to the Order, sir.”

“I’m glad you think so.”

“I assume he _will_ be joining our ranks?”

“I certainly hope so.”

“It will be nice to have him in the Order. He seems willing and eager, he should do well with us.”

Jack pauses.

“He looks like he’s had some training, maybe he won’t need a long introduction period before his induction.”

And that, from Jack, is the closest he may ever come to expressing a sense of sympathy with Shay because of their shared nature and I appreciate it all the more because I fear Charles Lee may react quite differently.

“Perhaps not.”

And when Shay next turns to me, I nod to signify my taking my leave of them, then make my way back to my study, carrying away with my the memory of his brilliantly happy smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * In 1711, in an expedition led by an Admiral Walker. More on that in later chapters but for now suffice to say I found the information in my copy of ‘The Past Times Book of Naval Blunders’. 
> 
> ** Loosely based on the Dunmore Pineapple. If you’ve never looked it up, http://www.nts.org.uk/Visit/The-Pineapple.
> 
> Hoping to get the next chapter up soon! <3


	14. Haytham | Wanted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now that Achilles has agreed to a meeting, the clock is ticking and Haytham finally puts to Shay his proposal for a future within the Order.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A huge thank you for comments and especially to Becky_Jones who gifted me a beautiful Shaytham fic set post-Versailles that you can find through my profile or [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11542986) (It's in French but google translate did a more than decent job with it when I tried it). 
> 
> As for this chapter, I think it's fluff but I have the feeling this might be a minority view (objectively, true fluff probably shouldn't require quite so many footnotes...). 
> 
> Becky, I hope you enjoy it (but if not, I'll write you a better one! XD)

__________________________________

_Aimer, ce n’est pas se regarder l’un l’autre,_

_c’est regarder ensemble dans la même direction._

– Antoine de Saint-Exupéry - Terre des hommes –

__________________________________

**HAYTHAM**

_Kenway House, New York, December 1755_

 

After looking over the documents I’ve prepared for the upcoming discussion, all arranged into different leather folders, I touch the bulky paper-wrapped package near them, squaring it so it falls into orderly alignment with the rest, before forcing myself to stop fussing.

The direction of my whole future will be decided in the next few hours. I’ve toiled for weeks in preparation for it but in a moment I will place it all in Shay’s hands and be left with nothing but the hope that I’m not asking too much of him and that what I offer in return will be enough.

Too soon, I recognise Shay’s particular measured knock at the door and stand to greet him, hands clasped behind my back, just as he steps in.

“You asked for me, Master Kenway?”

“Yes, Shay, come, sit.”

He settles into one of the two chairs opposite, his eyes trained on me, expectant and nervous.

Too soon for Shay too but I know the weight of his uncertainties weight on his mind too and I have risked too much waiting this long already.

“I thought it was time we discussed your future. Have you given any thought to what you might do?”

He closes his eyes a moment and I can almost feel in my own flesh the cold relief of finally facing a dreaded but inescapable trial but when he looks at me again, he seems perfectly calm and resigned.

“I thought… since you know people in the Navy… that after I help them maybe I could go on one of their ships somewhere. Somewhere quiet where I could start again.”

“And take the manuscript with you, as you initially intended?”

“I could hide it somewhere, if you wanted me to. But I think it’d be safest here with you.”

That trust - how will I bear the weight of it? How can I be sure I will never betray it?

“But is that what you _want_ , Shay? To leave New York, the _Morrigan_ … to leave me?”

Leaden and defeated, he shakes his head, watching me from across the expanse of my writing desk. He’s never had to face me in this way since we sat opposite one another in my coach, the night I took him from that dirty litter in that desolate cell, away from Liam O’Brien.

Standing, I make my way around the desk to his side of it, my fingers locked together behind my back, while he watches me, timid and tentative.

“If you told Achilles that I… that I’d died, I could stay here. They wouldn’t look for me.”

It has the ring of truth to it, he certainly came close enough to dying.

“Could you be happy, though, Shay? You could never be seen, you couldn’t leave the property, you couldn’t even go to the outer gardens.”

“I don’t mind.”

He believes it, my brave hawkling. And the idea is tempting - I could clip his wings and keep him here where he would be safe and have nothing to worry him. But I would never see him happy, truly happy, ever again and instead he would fade away, condemned to find what happiness he can in small pleasures and his buttered rolls become the joy of his life. No, I could never do it.

“And how long do you think this arrangement would last?”

The spark of hope in his eyes is almost painful to watch.

“As long as… you want…”

_Me._

The unspoken word hangs there between us like gunpowder smoke after a shot, unfurling and drifting.

“That could be a long time.”

“I don’t mind.”

This is it. This is all he asks of the future.

“I don’t think that will work, Shay.”

To avoid his gaze, I draw up the chair then turn it towards him before settling into it and Shay too twists in his seat towards me.

“You see, that arrangement wouldn’t give me all I want from you - both personally and as Grand Master. It wouldn’t give the Navy what it wants from you. So I’m afraid I will ask a great deal more from you.”

Shay listens intently, his usually mobile features still.

“I wish I could make you this offer with no strings attached but however much I strived to, many aspects were outside my hands. But you should know, Shay, that at the heart of it is my belief that you and I would make a solid match.”

He is astounded so I wait a moment to give my offer time to sink in.

“You mean… the two of us… married?”

“Yes. And Shay, this is not a mad, romantic offer. It is a rational one intended to provide me with a partner I can build a future with and to afford you protection.”

As I expected, he’s not in the least upset or offended by this.

“I do not want to marry you for the purpose of controlling you, Shay. I wish to leave you as free as I can under my protection. However, I am a Grand Master and a man of influence. I must safeguard my reputation and yours so others may not use them against us. Most of my demands pertain to this rather than any particular desire of mine. I think you will find my own attitudes somewhat liberal and unconventional.”

I pause. It is still a wonder to me how someone who can be so full of bright chatter can also, at other times, be so blessedly quiet and such a good listener.

Finally he speaks, his voice low and soft.

“What would you need from me?”

“Obedience, if it comes to that, though I do not plan to order you around any more than I do now. If you agree to it, I will induct you into the Order and you will owe me allegiance as your Grand Master just as much as any other to the Order’s members.

He is still listening attentively.

“I expect you to continue your reading and studying, I will tutor and guide you myself. I will train you and teach you everything you need to know so that you need never feel uneasy, even in the company of kings.”

His gaze drops a moment. He has come so far but nobody is more aware than he is of how much further he can go.

“Finally, I will never force you but I won’t deny I’ve desired you since I first laid eyes on you - though I imagine that makes me unexceptional. If you wish me to lay with you during your heats then I will, if not, I will accept that too.”

I say this as a matter of course and because I mean it but I think he has no real understanding of my offer. Unless he has already been bedded during his heat - and I feel certain he has not - he cannot know what it means for himself or for me.

Meanwhile, his eyes have gone wide.

“But… children?”

“If you want a child then I will happily oblige. I’ve never particularly wanted children but also have no objection to having one, perhaps in a few years’ time. I see no need to rush.”

He blinks but then this must come as a great surprise to one who has been led to believe all his life that his only duty in this world to to bear as many children as his master desires or that his body can stand to birth.

“ _Do_ you want children, Shay?”

“I… I don’t know. I suppose I… always assumed I would have some.”

What he means, though he doesn’t realise it, is that he’d always assumed he’d be _made_ to have some. After all, that is what omegas are for. And no doubt he also believes that I, as an alpha, must also want some.

“Two.”

“Two, Shay?”

“Two, so they’ll have each other.”

He’s thinking of O’Brien, remembering their childhood as brothers. Perhaps he’s not wrong. Shay and I, and even O’Brien, were all orphaned young and had to grow up without fathers.

In any case, I refuse to have this minor issue become a point of contention.

“Whatever you prefer, Shay. I’m prepared to indulge you on this point, it is of little consequence to me.”

His face is a picture of confusion.

“But then why…?”

“I want a partner, Shay. And surely… Surely you must realise that it is not usually given for any two people to understand each other as easily as we do?”

Ah, there, _this_ he understands. He does know this though he hadn’t admitted it to himself yet. But his expression soon clouds again.

“But if you want a partner, surely another would be better suited? Charles Lee…”

“Who told you about Charles?”

“Gist mentioned him and asked Jack about him too. But mostly Gist.”

_That prattling fool._

“Charles is important to the Order and to me. He is, in some ways, already my partner within the Order. But Charles already bends to me as he must to his Grand Master, he will not bear the added weight of having to bend to me in personal matters too. Whether he knows it or not.”

I look at Shay closely.

“I have never proposed marriage before, Shay. I thought I never would until we met. Again, even if you refuse me I will not ask Charles. I have my reasons and when you meet him I expect you’ll understand them. But for now, put Charles Lee out of your mind, Shay.”

He looks away, frowning slightly. I’ve given him a lot to think about but I want to make my intentions perfectly clear to him. I know very well what kind of nonsense he has been led to believe about omegas and marriage and I want there to be no misunderstandings.

“I won’t lie, Shay. It will not be easy, especially at the beginning. People will say all sorts of things, that I was bewitched by you, that I’m guided more by lust than reason. But as long as we, the two of us, know the truth of it, we need not care what others think.”

“What is the truth?”

I smile at him fondly.

“Simply that I like you and want you to be my partner. I desire your body but I would take you without it. Because you’re the only person I can speak to as I have, because you understand my meaning better than my words, because we are destined, Shay, to never have serious disagreements because we trust and believe the best of each other.”

He seems utterly mesmerised. And to think omegas are the ones always accused of bewitching alphas.

“And you, Shay, what would you request of me?”

He looks at me, vaguely puzzled, before shaking his head.

No, the poor lamb can think of nothing.

He does not know to insist I not mark him, beat him, or demean him in any of the hundreds of ways alphas can and do demean their mates. It has not occurred to him to ask me not to bed others, or boast to other men about what I subject him to in the bedroom, or brag about his sexual prowess and the pleasure I make him give me. He lays down no conditions on the handling of his property, which would automatically becomes mine, no provisions on having it returned should he want to leave me, no modalities as to how he might leave, no clarifications on how I am to make decisions for him, as I will be expected to as his master.

He is, as most omegas are, completely misled about his own biology, utterly uneducated in the consequences and true condition of marriage, profoundly ignorant about the psychology and sexuality of alphas. Shay’s was orphaned as an adolescent and this may explain why there are so many things he should know that he doesn’t know, but the truth is that even omegas from the most privileged families are kept in similar ignorance.

As I think of the dangers he’s avoided and of the risks he still runs I feel a sudden chill and blindness like in the moment one steps away from the precipice and can only find calm in the thought that he is likely to eventually accept my offer. I have only to protect him in this imperfect manner until then.

A look into his trusting eyes reminds me he's likely to accept sooner rather than later.

“Now, I’ve done everything in my power to secure the best possible future for you but, much as I wish they were, the terms I was able to negotiate are all conditional on our being married.”

Reaching over for the first folder, I place it before Shay and draw the various documents out of it.

“Because you were instrumental in the taking of Fort Arsenal and the _Morrigan_ , they have been offered to you to purchase for a symbolic pound each.”

I unfold both deeds, as yet undated and unsigned but impressive for their size and the heavy gothic script at their head.

“I took the liberty of making a downpayment out of the profits we made off the cargo the _Morrigan_ was carrying when we took her. Those profits too will be accredited to you. And since, to all extents and purposes, you turned yourself in, Sir Charles insisted that the reward go to you in full.”

Shay just stares as I lay out the commodity notes* and promissory note** for £5’000.

“Everything has been arranged with my solicitors here are the city clerks. If you agree to my offer these deeds will be signed, witnessed and registered before our marriage is. This is what you will bring to our marriage - a dowry, if you like - not at the price you will have paid but at its real value. Should we ever separate or anything else happen, these, at least, will revert back to you and should keep you in comfort.”

Shay just looks up at me helplessly.

“Sir Charles was also good enough to grant us a special license, which saves us having to wait for the banns° to be read and other trifles. And this is the marriage contract itself.”

Shay runs his fingertips over the ornate flourishes then trail down to our names, written in gothic, stark amid the flowing copperplate.

“Shay Patrick Cormac-Kenway?”

“You made a name for yourself against impossible odds, Captain Cormac, I won’t take that from you.”

I smile at him but he still looks stunned, almost uncomprehending.

“Captain Cormac?”

“The Morrigan would be yours. Gist will oversee her upkeep, repairs and improvements until you’re strong enough to see to them yourself.”

I take hold of the next folder and pull out the first packet of sheets.

“Insurance papers for the _Morrigan_ , a letter protecting the _Morrigan_ ’s crew from impressment, and this…”

Another large, folded sheet, also darkened by flourishes and ornamentation.

“A Letter of Marque against France, which Sir Charles promises to sign as soon as war is officially declared, and more to follow against any country that joins in war against us - Spain seems a likely candidate. Sir Charles has waived any need for a security.”

Shay touches the _Morrigan_ ’s name, then his own, then starts back at the beginning, slowly tracing each word as if trying to ground himself in the flowing formality of language and writing.

“Until war is declared, you would be assigned to convoy duty, resupplying and carrying communications for the Navy. Sir Charles intends to set up a blockade up and down the coast as soon as possible – should you like to hunt blockade-runners, Shay? And Captain Cook is an avid explorer and hydrographer and has asked that you be allowed to accompany him on some of his expeditions. ” 

Reaching over, I take the paper-wrapped package and hand it to Shay who lays it on his lap, easily unties the cordage and lifts up the folds, the crackle of the brown paper preternaturally loud in the stillness of the study.

His small gasp too echoes in the dead quiet anticipation.

_The White Ensign.°°_

One of the symbols of the Royal Navy.

Shay’s expression as he stares at it is two parts stupefaction and one part terror.

His fingers twitch but he can’t quite bring himself to touch it. Unsurprising. After all, this was an enemy flag throughout his career as a captain.

To me it represents the only peace of mind that can ever be offered to the partner of a fighting officer. As a pirate, Shay would have been marked for death by every nation in the world and even other pirates, but in most armed forces it is considered unsporting to take potshots at each other’s officers. And if his ship is ever taken, Shay and his officers will be guaranteed the same rights, privileges and protections as other navy or army officers as prisoners of war, to be treated as such under the Articles of War – kept on parole, in relative comfort, until such a time as they may be returned to us in a prisoner exchange or at the end of the war.

It offers little protection from his Assassin brethren, but it is the most we can do against the French.

Sliding my chair nearer and reaching over, I unfold the flag once to fully reveal the cross in the canton then gently press Shay’s hand onto the close-woven silk.

“Sir Charles felt this would show you just how seriously the Royal Navy takes their collaboration with you.”

Shay strokes along the red strips and when his hand reaches mine, still resting on the flag, he slips his beneath it and winds his fingers into mine.

“I wish I could tell you to take as long as you need to decide, Shay, but I can only give you a couple of days and then I must start making arrangements, one way or the other. I wish I could offer you all this unconditionally, but the only guarantee the Sir Charles could accept was my word and my responsibility, and I can only give those as your master.”

By now, we’re sitting so close that our knees are pressed together and our elbows touch.

“Shay, look at me. You are so very wanted here, hawkling. The Royal Navy wants you and I want you, not just as a man but as a Grand Master - you already have a place here.” 

He holds my gaze a moment then, overwhelmed, buries his face against my shoulder, drawing up the flag and our joined hands up against his chest. I let him rest there, my lips brushing his hair.

“Is it the sex?”

I muffle my puff of laughter into his hair.

“I won’t lie, the sex would have been enough, but no, it isn’t just the sex, _as you very well know_ , you horrid thing.”

I can feel Shay’s smile as I mouth his ear and the press of his lips as he kisses me through my shirt, and then his words, whispered and half-lost against the silk.

“I like that you want me. I’ve never liked being wanted before.”

“Good.”

I let my hand wander to the red bow that holds his hair back. He always wears it pulled back now, though I couldn’t say whether he does it purely by choice or because he knows it pleases me or because Barrington imposes it.

“In China they believe that two people who are fated to meet are bound to each other by a red ribbon, tied to an ankle and invisible to the eye. Perhaps they are not entirely wrong.”

I will not lie or cheat to make Shay accept me but I’m prepared to stoop to just about anything else, and having put this final touch of predestination on my offer I draw away, pausing just a moment to soak up the look of almost childlike wonder on Shay's face.

I tidy up the papers and put them back in their respective folders and hand those to Shay.

“Here, you should look at these and come to me with any questions.”

Shay nods and takes them, looking immediately weighed down by the enormity of what they symbolise - every mark of legitimacy he’s never had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Commodity notes: As I understand it, commodity notes functioned like our modern bank notes, except that instead of representing money/gold, they were issued on deposit of a certain amount of goods used for trade (commodity money). For instance, tobacco was Virginia’s main commodity money. This ties in with the Sell Cargo mechanic in Rogue and Black flag since sugar, tobacco and such could be used as money.  
>  ** Promissory note: Just what it sounds like - a written promise to pay the bearer a certain amount, etc. These still exist.  
>  ° The banns would normally have to be read on three consecutive Sundays (I think), which would have delayed things by nearly a month. In practice here, cutting down this time means Liam doesn’t have a chance to protest and claim breach of promise.  
>  °° White Ensign: In-game, the Morrigan flies the White Ensign from her foremast - it differs from current White Ensign in that it bears a Cross of St George in the upper canton rather than the Union Flag.
> 
> **____________________________**
> 
> Yup, sorry about that. I went to law school, my idea of romance involves a lot of paperwork. XD  
>  Didn't want to overload the page with footnotes so I might have forgotten to explain some technicalities, but questions are always welcome <3


	15. Shay | Confession

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shay and Haytham discuss a certain Pyrate book.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! So happy so many people liked the last chapter! Thank you for all the comments <3  
> After I posted it I realised I hadn't even thrown in a kiss! Ah well, they'll make up for it eventually ;) 
> 
> Another big thank you to Becky_Jones who helped me check the Forsaken chronology and storyline <3 <3 <3

**SHAY**

_Kenway House, New York, December 1755_

 

Turning to the next page, I find a folded page so I sit up against the pillows and lay the book flat on the blanket so I can fold it out - a print of Captain Bartholomew Roberts with the _Royal Fortune_ and the _Ranger_ behind him.

Under the blankets, Master Kenway’s feet shift so they rest next to mine again.

He got back from a big dinner at a house nearby about an hour ago and he’s only half undressed - in a nightshirt but still in breeches and stockings, sitting in his armchair, reading, his feet up on the bed, under the blankets, touching mine.

He probably only changed for me. He knows I like him in his nightshirt, open at the throat and rolled up at the elbows. I like seeing the shadows at his collarbones and the lines of his forearms, they remind me of what’s under the clothing, the Haytham Kenway _I_ know.

Glancing down at the book, I run my thumb along the gilt edges.

Not really the kind of book I expected a Grand Master Kenway to have. Yellowed pages, folds and small tears, water stains - some in drops and some in circles - and some of the picture prints are coloured in.

“Did you find what you were looking for, Shay?”

Aye, Calico Jack, and more besides.

“There’s a Kenway in it. An Edward Kenway, captain of the brig Jackdaw.”

Master Kenway smiles and puts down his papers to watch me.

“I did say my father wasn’t a Haytham.”

_What?_

“Your father was… a pirate?”

“Why so surprised? Did you think _I_ had stolen all my money myself? Just because I’m a Templar?”

Not sure what to say to that but then I feel Master Kenway’s toe run along the inside of the arch of my left foot.

“Is that why you have this?”

He nods, draws his feet away to sit up, leaning forward.

“This is my copy. This fourth edition, larger and more richly illustrated than the previous ones, was printed soon after I was born. My father bought it for me even though he already had several copies - at least one first edition and his favourite was a pirate copy, printed in Ireland without permission, he said it was the only edition that truly embodied the spirit of the thing. It was one of his first gifts to me and used to exasperate my mother and sister by always trying to leave it in my crib.”

He reaches out to run his nail along the edge, a ripple through the gold as it opens up the pages a little.

“He never spoke of it much in front of the womenfolk - my half-sister’s mother died while he was in the West Indies and my own mother nearly broke with her parents over her decision to marry a former _privateer_ \- but when we were alone he told me all sort of stories of his time as a pirate captain. I never really knew if they were true or not but he made them all seem real - the first time he went to Great Inagua and a saw a waterfall so _vast_ he couldn’t see both the top and bottom or the left and right side of it at once, of the villa he acquired there with the underground treasure trove and the Templar suit of armour locked away in cage hidden behind a wall in the large study from whose easterly window he could see the cliff top he used to dive off into the sea. And the bay below it with the _Jackdaw_ berthed up close to the tavern, just on the other side of the jetty - my father said he used to go there straight from the ship and never even touched ground until he woke up the next morning, buried and half-baked under a pile of dried up banana leaves, head split in two by a hangover. And the beach along the bay, leading back up to the cliff, where he and his men sometimes spent whole nights drinking and dancing, trying to spear fish in the shallow water with marlingspikes and blunt-ended rigger’s knives by the light of their bonfires and the _Jackdaw_ ’s stern lanterns.”

He pauses, half-smiling and half-sad, but then all smiling when I touch his hand.

Never been there but I’ve heard of the Great Inagua hideout - an _Assassin_ hideout.

“We still do that - blunt the rigger’s knives, I mean. We break off the tip. Saves injury in accidents and fights.”

That makes him laugh.

“They way my father told it that was probably a sound precaution with this lot,” he raps his knuckles onto the flat of the page, “They came alive for me too, even more so than they do in the book. Bartholomew Roberts swanned around in lace and pearls - you can see them here on this picture, although I was told he wore a choker of them as well as the ropes - and my father said he never knew where he stood with Roberts, that he had uncanny, different-coloured eyes, impossible to read,” he pauses and slips his fingers under mine so I link them with his, “He could spend all day and all night talking about boarding galleons, wrestling crocodiles and - well, he told me a little about your Havana girls too but I didn’t understand much of it then. But he only ever talked about the people at night, in the dark, when I was falling asleep. Not so much about Roberts, but the others - Teach, Hornigold, Mary Read. He would laugh at them and rail at them and sigh at them as if they were still there but then he always fell into silence - and sadness, I think, quiet sadness.”

He moves and settles onto the bed beside me, puts an arm around me and kisses my temple.

“Later, much later, I wondered if that’s why he’s barely mentioned in the book - because he was the only one of them left alive.”

“Did he write it?”

“He died when I was just ten and I’d never thought to ask him. But there’s no such person as a Captain Charles Johnson and few people in London would have known anything of what’s in it so I wouldn’t at all be surprised if my father had at least helped. It certainly carries his voice - brash, reckless, with a penchant for embellishment - and the Rivington and Co. publishers still send me a hefty banker’s draft every year or so in payment for unspecified services rendered by my father to them.”

I rub my foot against his but I’m pinned under the blankets now.

“You must’ve loved him a lot.”

“He was the father every little boy wants. Brash, reckless, always laughing. He would pick me up, turn me upside down and shake me until all the ‘loot’ fell out of my pockets. And it was he who taught me how to tell a tale as to seduce everyone who listens to it.”

“You mean me?”

He smiles and when he presses a kiss onto the bridge of my nose, I close my eyes - I always close my eyes when he does it, can’t help it.

“I do like it when you tell me stories.”

“I’m quite aware, hawkling, and I’m afraid I’ve been rather knowingly using it against you. Did your father tell you stories?”

“No, but the hands did - all sorts of stories, didn’t know if they were all true or not either. Some of the lascars had worked on Indiamen and told us about diamonds and rubies worth more than a first rate each, the malays had all been pirates in the Strait of Malacca and used to _live_ on the skiffs they used to attack the British, the Dutch and the Portuguese and each other. Others were North Frisian whalers and told us of bull whales big as islands and strong enough to sink a first rate, of the unholy stink of their carcasses, of storms that turned the sky green and orange and made the birds fall from the sky, and of being away at sea for two or three years without ever seeing home… But my father never did. He taught me and explained things, but he never told me stories, not even about my mother, and maybe that’s why I sometimes felt I didn’t know him. I wish I’d known him better. I loved my father more than anyone, but I think I’d’ve liked a father like yours.”

“Do you know, hawkling, I suspect he would have adored a son like you. A privateer, a skilled sailor and a lucky one.”

Aye, a privateer and maybe something else too.

“It says here his quartermaster was a man called Adewalé…”

“Yes, my father, Achilles and he all had the same Mentor, Ah Tabai. Adewalé was probably his best mentee, my father his worst, and Achilles his last.”

_Oh._

“But - does that mean…? Are you…?”

_Ah. So that’s how he knew where Doctor Meadows was._

“I was only ten when he died, not nearly old enough to become an Assassin, not even old enough to know what they were, though my father had started to train me in sword fighting and so on. The only thing that truly interested him outside his family was the Assassin Brotherhood and the Precursor artefacts. He spent all his time tracing the Brotherhood’s history - from the Caribbean to London then continuing east and south, to Cyprus, then an old man on a mountain near Antioch and his sect of fanatical followers who lived and died over five centuries ago, and perhaps further still.”

Another kiss against my ear.

“Perhaps I inherited his love of paper too, his study was always full of paper in every form. Scrolls in obscure languages, maps, dusty old books, and his own diary or notebook, into which he wrote every day, every theory, every piece of information he’d deciphered, every piece of the impossible puzzle the Precursor race left us. He and my mother were killed by intruders trying to burgle our house, my half-sister, Jennifer, disappeared that night, kidnapped, and I was taken in - adopted, really - by one of my father’s business acquaintances, Reginald Birch, who’d been engaged to Jennifer and was practically part of the family already. He was Grand Master of the British Rite and raised me as a Templar from the start and inducted me into the Order himself.”

He leans over to unbuckle the knee buckles on his breeches. Plain blue silk breeches and paste buckles - must’ve been a nice dinner but not a formal one.

“John doesn’t want me sleeping in the same bed as you yet but… perhaps just for an hour.”

“Won’t tell if you don’t. How did you find out about your father?”

He pulls off his stockings and throws them at the bench at the foot of the bed. One falls half-on half-off, the other overshoots it completely and soars before rippling wildly to the ground. He manages to wrangle himself under the sheets with me and when he moves the book onto his own lap I can finally settle against him properly, wrapped up in his arm, one of my feet between his and an arm over him, my fingers stroking that scar over his hip before I know it. Through the shirt I can smell _him_ and the pine scent from the bath he had before leaving.

“Reginald told me. It mattered, of course, but it didn’t change anything – I believed in the Order’s ideals. But then a few months ago, I went back to Europe because my contacts had finally been able to trace my sister. She was being held in a harem, in Constantinople, had been for years. I went to free her and it was then she told me that our parents had been killed on Reginald’s orders. He’d become obsessed with Precursor knowledge and finding the Pieces of Eden and he wanted my father’s research. His bid to marry Jennifer was just another attempt to ingratiate himself with my father. He took my father’s work, sold Jennifer off so she couldn’t give him away, and kept me, with my Assassin blood and my Assassin sight, as his spiritual heir.”

_A lie._

His whole life a lie. An even bigger lie than mine.

He easily flips back through to one of the title pages with Mary Read and Anne Bonny’s names printed large across it, then traces them with his finger, like he’s done this a million times before.

“What did you do?”

“We needed answers so Jennifer and I confronted him. The whole sordid truth came out, we fought and in the end she - _we_ \- killed him. We made it look like a break-in and nobody has questioned that version of events. Reginald Birch is still remembered and respected as one of the most successful Grand Masters and I am still his crown prince of the Templar Order.”

I rub my fingers over the scar.

“Is that when you got this?”

“Yes. It nearly killed me. John says that though the wound has closed over at the surface, it’s still healing beneath.”

“But you’re still a Templar?”

Shutting the book, he puts it on the corner of the bedside table and pulls me closer, just the two of us with nothing between us.

“Yes. After Reginald’s death I sounded my soul and after all of this, I still believe in the Order’s principles. I still believe that justice must be built one right and one obligation at the time and that rampant anarchy only favours the strongest because it allows them to prey on the weak undisturbed. Achilles, Reginald, perhaps even my father - their minds were absorbed and overwritten by their fixation with Precursor knowledge. Do you see now why I have no wish to pursue it? I’d given up the idea entirely but what you told me made me see that it is not enough for me to give it up - when it becomes a consuming passion in others I must find a way to prevent them from causing harm because of it.”

“The way Mackandal did in Port-au-Prince and… the way I did in Lisbon…”

“Not you, Shay. You didn’t know.”

“I did know. I should’ve known. I overheard them talking, Achilles and Adewalé, about Mackandal and his man, Vendredi, and about the earthquake.”

“You didn’t know. You may have suspected it after the fact, but you didn’t know. You said yourself that Achilles and O’Brien never told you anything.”

That’s true. I know more about Calico Jack than I did then and none of it was worth keeping secret - none of it _was_ secret, since it’s all here in a book older than I am.

“But you trust me? Enough to take me into the Order and to give me the _Morrigan_ back?”

“Yes.”

“But what if I leave and don’t come back?”

He sighs into my hair and kisses the top of my head.

“Then so be it. I’m giving you Fort Arsenal also so you may have somewhere to stay if you don’t want to stay here.”

Another kiss and his hold on me tightens.

“You were never made to be caged, Shay. You were made to soar.”

Just now I don’t want to soar, I want to stay here with him. Ever since I left the homestead that night, I though I would be like a migrating bird, just landing in one place long enough to rest before leaving again, flying and flying towards a place that doesn’t exist. I didn’t think I would ever find another nest like the homestead where I would be safe and welcome.

After a long while he speaks, his voice low and husky.

“I understand, Shay, how if feels to be betrayed by one’s mentor, have every certainty cut out from under one in an instant and to feel oneself standing on shifting ground, unsure which way to run. What happened with Reginald wounded me in more ways than I care to acknowledge. But I can feel all the wounds inside me and I can feel them changing me - making me harder, more brittle. I don’t want to change. I want to be the man I see reflected in your eyes. I need you to remind me that I want to trust and forgive.”

“Even Reginald? Even Achilles?”

“I would forgive Achilles in a moment if he would only _stop_. As for Reginald… I’m trying.”

But Achilles won’t stop, even though he was wrong and his mistake cost the lives of thousands of innocents he pledged to protect. That’s what I can’t forgive. I must not forgive or forget it.

“And I think I can give you something too, something to hold onto. And joining the Order would give you purpose, direction. These are things you want, aren’t they? To stop Achilles? To put right what can be still be mended and build a better future on the ruins of the past?”

He pauses a moment, running his fingers in my hair.

He’s right. I’ll die sooner or later and when I do I can rest, but not yet. I owe it to all the people I’ve killed and let die to make amends.

“So, hawkling, do you think you could bear to fly back to our nest now and then?”

_Bear to?_

Couldn’t bear not to - when he’s gone too long or when I wake up too quickly and he’s not there my mind spins into a panic. He’s my north now.

“Aye.”

A small sound like a gasp or a sigh and his arm tightens around me as he nuzzles my hair.

“Are you not afraid I’ll hurt you?”

His hold on me loosens a little when I shrug.

“Perhaps I would be, if I could imagine it at all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * The thought of Haytham in stockings kills me but hey - that’s what they wore with breeches.  
> ** Still the copy of A General History of the Pyrates that Haytham lent him back in Part I.  
> *** I would be so game for a Caribbean holiday right now…  
> ° We still don’t know exactly who wrote the Pyrate book… I think Ubisoft would approve of this theory ;)  
> °° Lascar: Essentially an East Indian seaman.  
> °°° Indiaman: An East India Company merchant ship (merchantman).  
> \+ A first rate ship of the line - the largest warships, carrying at least 80 guns (cannons) spread over three gun decks. Chevalier’s Gerfaut would have have been considered a first rate. 
> 
> I've posted the Bartholomew Roberts page [here](http://poison-despatch.tumblr.com/post/163270662407/from-a-general-history-of-the-pyrates-1724)


	16. Haytham | A Perfect Fit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Captain Cook finally comes to meet Shay, which allows Haytham to tie up some loose ends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again for all the encouraging comments! <3 
> 
> This chapter is full of nautical jargon - Shay and James Cook are doing their thing.  
> I'm not a sailor, never have been, I'm just trying to imagine what it'd be like. 
> 
> Enjoy!

**HAYTHAM**

_Kenway House, New York, December 1755_

 

“Aye, we caulked up the empty gun ports at the fore. The ram pulls her forward so we tend to put our guns aft. In a way it’d be easier to keep more guns on deck and caulk up as many ports as possible, given she’s prone to heel so, but she likes her weight as low as possible so we compromise. The gun ports aren’t low either and she only makes a foot or so of water in fine weather so there’s no harm with we take some through the gun ports.”

Startled, Captain Charles Colby of _HMS Torbay,_ Admiral Boscawen’s flagship, half-glances over his shoulder at the languid triple-caw of a nearby peahen and watches, circumspect, as it tips forward to jab at the crumbs from our scones and biscuits, under the interested gaze of our two pups stretched out under the coffee table. He and James Cook were dispatched by Sir Charles to make final verifications as to Shay’s identity before witnessing the signing of the stack of documents necessary to cement his position and secure his safety.

“Why! You must keep her in fine fighting form, Captain Comac!”

“Aye, well, we do try, don’t we, Jones? She’s easy to keep in shape given she’ll heel as far as you like at the bat of an eyelash.”

Jones is here too, as the _Morrigan_ ’s master, seeming to stand guard over his captain though he was invited to sit. Ensconced in his rattan armchair, Shay looks handsomer than I’ve ever seen him. This is his first formal visit and the impression he gives is the one Cook and Colby will carry away with them to Sir Charles and Admiral Boscawen, and I know Barrington put a great deal of thought and cunning into his appearance. Brushed and polished and dressed in young Finnegan’s shirt, slim buff waistcoat and breeches, Shay looks fabulously neat and expensive, the billowing shirtsleeves restrained above the elbow by a width of grosgrain ribbon tied in bows - a subtle nod to the fact that he’s an omega and my future mate - while the soft wool blanket thrown over his knees is to remind them that he’s still in convalescence.

John, too, is present, prepared to call a halt to the proceedings if they cause Shay too much anxiety.

Led into conversation but Captain Cook, the seamen found common ground without even a moment’s awkwardness, leaving John and me politely sidelined. I’d always expected this to be the case but I am surprised by the warm glow I feel at Shay being to quickly and thoroughly accepted by two men so high up in their profession. It comforts me in my choice as Grand Master - just as William Johnson does, Shay brings the Rite specialist knowledge that it was sorely lacking and that will no doubt prove valuable in the months to come. Shay’s very existence and the whole question of what to do with him, has already given me the opportunity to cement my ties with Sir Charles and Captain Cook, both inestimable contacts.

Turning my attention back to the conversation, I moderate the fond smile I feel looming.

“But I expect that even with a carefully stowed hull and plenty of ballast you think twice before hoisting stuns’ls at sea, no?”

“Aye, though we’ve been known to use ‘em off of Halifax in a following sea when we’re not heavy. We don’t carry much water or provisions or anythin’ so most of our weight is in guns, shot, and a bit of cargo. But there were times on the river and especially on the great lakes when we had to spread every last bit of canvas to catch a breath of wind and even then sometimes there was nothin’ to be done but whistle and wait for a land breeze, eh, Jones?”

“Aye, sir, and the men’ll tie their neckerchiefs to the rigging for luck and to see ‘er come quicker.”

A lull in the conversation as we each simultaneously take a sip of tea - save Jones who seemed alarmed by the bone china teacup when it was first offered to him, daintily put it down on the nearest table and has steadfastly ignored it ever since.

Shay glances at me a moment, nakedly seeking reassurance and approval.

“Forgive my ignorance, gentlemen, but as I’m to be married to a sailor perhaps you would be so good as to educate me. What makes the Gulf so difficult to navigate?”

“Well, the Gulf has some challenging characteristics - strong currents in places, unexpected shoals, difficult weather conditions. But our main problem is that we don’t know with the kind of certainty we’d like where any of them are.”

“But don’t you have maps of the area?”

Embarrassed looks on the navy side, pity thinly disguised as polite reserve from Shay and Jones whose gazes meet out of the corner of their eyes.

“Our own charts date back to 1745 when the colonial forces were able to take Louisbourg with… ah, some help from Commodore Warren. Our New England allies were kind enough to provide him with their best charts at the time. Of course, we handed Louisbourg back to the French in ’48 and so these are now dated and vague. We did find a more accurate one on the _Alcide*_ among a pile of old papers but we think the captain must have had a still more recent one and simply forgot about it - we did not find the logbook or any other papers so we assume he had time to destroy anything of importance. We found nothing at all on the _Lys_ and the map from the _Alcide_ does not agree with any of ours, which in turn don’t agree with each other or even Captain Cormac’s. We really need more accurate charts of the Gulf, as for the St Lawrence river… well, we have barely any charts of it at all since it’s always been French.”

Though Jones is still as granite, I can again see his gaze travel to Shay.

Meadows makes a sound of surprise as he sets his teacup down.

“But the British have been present in the New World for over a century and a half, was no attempt ever made to create your own charts?”

By now Shay looks like he’s trying to read the tea leaves at the bottom of his teacup while Jones’ attention is fixed on the climbing jasmine in the far corner, white flowers turned to amber by the setting sun. Colby goes so far as to cough into his teacup, leaving Cook to answer.

And so starts the tale of an Admiral Hovenden Walker who, in 1711, set out with a fleet, not to chart the waters but to conquer Quebec in an expedition that failed for reasons almost too numerous to list. Poor preparations in England, made too slowly with gave the French spies in London ample time to get wind of the scheme.

“Ships left with just three months provisions, to fool the French into thinking they were going elsewhere - damn fool thing to do.”

That’s Colby throwing in his two cents and Cook instantly pacifies him.

“Aye, it was a little silly and it put us - the Navy, that is - in a delicate position here.”

Jones snorts.

“Fools arrived starving and demanded food. Came on like a plague of locust, they did. My ma said they’d have pried the last barnacle off the rocks if they could’ve.”

“Their demands might have been unreasonable…” Cook agrees soothingly before turning to me, “It took nearly three months to re-provision the fleet and - well, there’s no point being coy about it, the story must be well-known here - every night more men slipped over the side, never to be seen again.”

Shay glances up at Jones.

“Jones, wasn’t your father…?”

“Aye, ‘expect half the other New Englanders on our crew were fathered by your deserters too. We like a fighting ship better than a fishing boat - must be something in the blood.”

“Aye, well, they finally had to press an amount of local fishermen into the service to make up the numbers. But that wasn’t even the biggest problem. Walker still didn’t have a navigator and the Bostonians were… well, less than forthcoming in their offers to help. They remain reticent to this day. We would never have discovered your identity if you hadn’t come forward yourself, Captain Cormac.”

Jones grunts.

“We look after our own, is all.”

Cook nods sagely.

“Aye, quite right too.”

A fortune paid to a captured Frenchman, the captain of the _Neptune_ , to direct them to Quebec but the operational navigation given over to a Colonel Vetch, more soldier than sailor. And then catastrophe - a northern shore mistaken for a southern one, several ships lost and most of their crews.

“But how could something like that happen?”

Colby and Cook glance at each other.

“We don’t exactly know. The logbook, charts and papers were lost before anyone from the Navy had a chance to look at them and the witness statements were contradictory. What we do know, is that we can’t afford to make the same mistakes again.”

Soon after this, Jones returns to the ship, it having been decided it would be preferable to keep the marriage and sale of the fort and ship quiet for a little longer. The rest of us go into the library where my solicitor is waiting near the writing table where all the papers have been set out.

It is a lengthy, drawn-out process and in-between signings I have a quiet word with Cook.

“You’re satisfied then?”

“Oh, aye, I knew we had our man when I saw the logbook. You can’t fake that sort of thing,” he smiles, “I think we’ve rather shown our hand today. We’re quite desperate for Captain Cormac’s help. We are at a disadvantage and as Captain Cormac mentioned, there’s very little we can do at the moment with ice as far south as Belle-Île. We’re relying on him entirely. But I think this will be a successful partnership.”

Yes, they have shown their hand but I don’t know this game so I’ll need Shay to tell me whether their hand is a good one.

Shay, meanwhile, keeps glancing at me, terrified and appalled by his decision, and so I go to stand behind him, a hand on his shoulder to settle him.

Once he’s signed it, Shay holds onto the deed to the Morrigan for so long that finally Captain Cook has to gently shake it from his grasp, smiling fondly. He has just confessed to me that he was all predisposed to liking Shay Cormac but now finds him more charming and more capable and knowledgeable than even he’d expected.

I sign the marriage contract first, under Shay’s morbidly fascinated gaze, then hand the quill to him, feeling his hand press against mine as he takes the quill from me. Then Colby signs and then Cook, with a flourish, and there it is - it is done. 

                                                             

Shay’s so evidently shaken and worn by it all that after a few murmured words, Meadows bundles him away upstairs to give make him lie down and give him a light sleeping draught but soon returns to join the rest of us as we sit down to an early dinner.

Entering my bedroom a couple of hours later, I find Shay in bed with his dinner tray over his lap, the two dogs curled up on the floor and Barrington at his bedside, demonstrating the proper way to hold the silverware.

Shay looks up from his food, bright and happy.

Ever since he’s been back on solid food Cook and her staff have been spoiling him. Tonight’s meal is no exception, all made up as it is of exquisitely scaled down versions of the main dinner - an individual sea-pie, nestled in a few leaves of chard on a silver entrée dish that Barrington has just uncovered for him, more lavishly decorated with pie-crust holly leaves and cutouts than ours was, and two helpings of the onion soup in what is, in fact, a plump little finial-topped sauce tureen.

“Did I do all right?”

“Better than perfection, Shay. They’re delighted with you.”

I draw up an armchair next to Barrington.

“Shay, what didn’t you all tell me this afternoon? Is the Gulf of St Lawrence really that dangerous?”

Shay observes me from beneath lowered lashes a moment.

“There’s a deep trench along the bottom of the Gulf but it’s very narrow in places and the waters become a lot shallower pretty quick once you’re out of the trench so larger ships can run aground before they know it. As Captain Cook said the weather conditions are difficult. The warmer water coming in from the river and the land masses create all sorts of unpredictable winds, currents and fog. As for the river, well, it’s more of the same only ten times worse.”

Barrington shakes his head ever so slightly as Shay gathers his first spoonful of soup so Shay starts again, moving the spoon away from himself.

“But you can navigate there? Are your charts accurate?”

“Oh aye. The French were our allies, my charts are the closest thing they’ll get to what the captains of the _Alcide_ and _Lys_ had. Better even, since most of the French ships can’t go as close to shore or as far inland as the _Morrigan_. And because the _Morrigan_ has an ice ram, we don’t spend half the year wintering in the deep-water, warm-water ports south of Fort Louis. We know the gulf like the backs of our hands. Some of our crew come from families that have sailed here for three generations or more. We don’t need to study maps and charts, we _know_ where the currents flow, which areas to avoid in which seasons, which ships have already wrecked on which shoals. We don’t need to see the sun or the stars to calculate where we are. We navigate by sight - we can tell by the cliffs, the shores, the promontories, the bluffs, the shape or the breakers, whether we’re near Sept-Îles, Port Menier or Percé.”

He finishes the last of his soup under Barrington’s watchful eye.

“We know exactly where Walker’s ship and the others that managed to save themselves stood off in the channel, with Havre Saint-Pierre under their lee and _Anticosti_ \- where more ships have wrecked that almost anywhere in the gulf - _to windward_ , and where the other ships ran aground and were battered ’til broken by the waves. A thousand men at least were lost that night, many of them local fisherman. If the wind hadn’t changed when it did, they would have all died.”

After a glance at Barrington, he cuts into the sea-pie.

“How could something like that happen?”

“Navigational error, most like. What Cook said is true, all the papers were lost. What he didn’t tell you is that they were destroyed when Walker’s ship blew up and went down with all hands just days after they’d returned to England - only Walker wasn’t on it, he was in London - and that the Admiralty and the newspapers blamed it all on the colonists.”

“Aye, well, that might be some of it. His uncle was one of the fishermen pressed into the navy ships - part of the reason why his father married his mother - and barely made it back. None of them took too kindly to it all.And Cook didn’t mention that before Louisbourg was taken it was full of privateers and pirates that threatened the local ships - well, not _us_ , obviously, but like, the fisherman and merchant ships. And people were worried the French would launch an attack from there and take New England. It was the colonials set out to take Louisbourg and asked Commodore Warren for help, aye, and they wanted to keep it too so things wouldn’t go back to the way they were, but after just a few years the British traded her anyway, for some place in India.”

“Madras. I remember it now, the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. The British merchants with trade to the colonies were furious too.”

“Near fifty days of siege, of cannon fire, of wearing about and again or beating to windward in the cold and bad weather, before the French gave up the fortress - it’d’ve taken longer if the French had sent ships to defend it too. And the ships’d been there since March. You don’t know what it’s like up there when it’s cold - ice floes the size o’ this bed or this room, all ready to make a great ripping hole in your hull, and wind like the very breath of Boreas himself and that you can’t keep out no matter how close you fasten up the gun ports or caulk up the seams, wind with ice in it that cuts like razors so you can barely see and that scores your skin so bad that once you’re warm again and you can feel it you think someone’s tried to have it off with sandpaper. Liam and I were in Boston with Chevalier when the news came the French’d struck their colours - the whole city was dancing the whole night through.”

_Ah._

I should have detected the Chevalier de la Verendrye’s hand in that. His contacts with the French authorities as well as the local pool of smugglers, pirates would have put him in a unique position to draw profit from such a situation.

“And just three years later you gave her away, and now seven years after that, here we are again,only this time you’re askin’ _us_ to help _you_. Can’t blame our lot for thinking their lot are fools, can you?”

“No, I suppose not.”

“But Jones’s also still sore about the _Alcide_ and the _Lys_. The lads of the _Dauphin Royal_ that the _Alcide_ ’s captain asked Colby’s ship, _Torbay_ , if they were at war or at peace and they were told ‘at peace’ only to be fired upon moments later. The French were our allies - we had friends on those ships, and now they’re prisoners of war.”

I wonder how long he’ll have to bear the weight of what he’s chosen to do, of what he’s asked others to do for his sake. Captain Cook and Sir Charles may accept him, but I know that many others - most others, even within the Order - will distrust him. He and his men’s former allies will instantly become their enemies, but it will be a long time yet before his new allies become friends.

“Cook might not have known any of this.”

“Aye, ‘xpect he didn’t. But I’m tellin’ you so you understand how people feel about it. If you take Louisbourg again, you’d better keep her this time or there’ll be revolt in the streets.”

Hard words but, after all, this is just what I want from him, what I hoped he would bring to the Rite.

As he finishes his pie, picking up the last crumbs of crust with the flat of his knife under Barrington’s disapproving gaze, I can’t help a resurgence deep inside me of that certainty that all this hardship will brings its rewards and that Shay will soon soar above it all.

Barrington gathers up Shay dinner things and as soon as he stands, the two borzois are on their feet, though they wait until he’s left before jumping onto the bed and settling by Shay.

Reaching out, I let the nearest one sniff my hand. They’re strange-looking creatures, long-faced and drop-eared and nothing but large dark eyes. Destined to be raised in the stables, only when I saw them, small and intelligent, I thought Shay might like their company. And he does, the dogs are rarely out of his presence now, following him about in alternating bouts of languid long steps and playful prancing.

“Have you named them yet?”

“I… Well, they’re not mine…”

“They are now, hawkling. All of it is.”

He glances down at the pups, still stroking them absently.

After displacing one of them, who waits very obligingly until I’ve manoeuvred myself onto the bed by Shay before curling up against my side, I slip an arm around Shay and draw him close.

“This is yours too now, Shay.”

I draw out a small velvet-lined damask pouch from my pocket and place it on Shay’s lap.

A long moment’s hesitation and he unfolds it to reveal the ring I close weeks ago when he was still plunged in fevered sleep. A band of old mine cut diamonds with an inscription along the inside. Even in the low light, it flashes and gleams and throws constellations of bright white spots of light all around us as Shay slowly turns it over in hands.

Finally, I take it from him and gently place it onto his finger where it sits, snug and simple. Folding his hand over mine, I press my lips onto his finger, just above the ring.

“There. A perfect fit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Alcide and Lys: two French navy ships attacked and captured by the British on June 8, 1755. The Dauphin Royal was with them but got away. 
> 
> This did happen and it really escalated tensions in the colonies. 
> 
> The Walker expedition also really happened - and I think I make it sound better than it was. 
> 
> If you have any questions, feel free to ask in comments! <3


	17. Achilles | The Lone Pine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meanwhile, Achilles girds his loins in preparation for his meeting with Haytham.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back to some plot before we all flounder in fluff XD 
> 
> Probably a bit of a surprise new POV but bear with me. I've started adding illustrations, let me know if they cause any problems <3

**ACHILLES**

_Davenport Homestead, Massachusetts, December 1755_

 

“We… _I_ cannot attack _Fort George_.”

A gleam of light travels up and down the Chevalier de la Verendrye’s sword every time he turns and paces before the window, back and forth the length of the room.

“I spoke to my French contacts to see what they would think of such an attack, of joining forces against the British and destroying their _arsenal_ and the barracks but they are _hostile_ to the idea. Completely _hostile_. They do not want to provoke the British before they have a chance to build up their strength and defences. They are still furious over losing the _Alcide_ and the _Lys_ and the men in them and now that they have lost _Fort Beauséjour*_ they cannot resupply or send reinforcements to _Louisbourg_ except by sea. And that William Johnson saving the life of _le Baron Deskiau_ \- _quelle humiliation_!”

Deep in thought and almost shaking with rage, he slows until he comes to a stop before the writing desk and his gaze falls to the broken drawer.

“We are in a weak position too, we have lost too much. This is not the time to fight. Not yet. We lost Hope’s place in the north of New York and now _Fort Arsenal_ too. We do not ‘ave a strong base left in New York, nowhere to launch an attack on the barracks from. We lost the manuscript, the cabbage farmer and his ship - _un imbécile et une merde_ , but still, they had their uses. I cannot risk the _Gerfaut_ or any of our other ships, I cannot risk our relation with the French - when war comes this homestead will be on the wrong side of the line, we will need our allies.”

“But we cannot do nothing.”

Chevalier shakes his head and smoothes his hair back. He has always been a sanguine and determined man, perhaps even an impatient one, but these are the qualities that have kept him striving when other men would have given up or even declined to even try.

“No, but we need to - _comment dire?_ \- cut our losses.”

He looks at the map over the writing desk, a large map of the colonies and Québec.

[ | A map of the British and French settlements in North America |](http://poison-despatch.tumblr.com/post/163449770787/a-map-of-the-british-and-french-settlements-in)   


“I do not like it, this _accumulation_ of soldiers and weapons in New York.”

“The British want to protect their borders and take back what they’ve lost.”

“ _Possible_. But Governor Lawrence has ordered the deportation of the _Acadiens**_ to cut the French supply lines - _all_ the _Acadiens_. They have been pushed as far as Miramichi and Kesegowaase’s Mi’kmaw*** allies in the region have asked him for his help. Things will get worse but for now, those troops in New York have nothing to do. If we offer any _provocation_ , someone might decide to send a regiment or two here, for target practice.”

He pauses again and looks out of the window.

“We will need Liam.”

“Yes. But we cannot give them Haytham Kenway the Precursor box or we are all lost.”

“No. But he maybe he will not ask for it. Why would he ask for a _negotiation_ instead of offering to trade Liam for the box? Maybe we are wrong and he does not have the cabbage farmer or the manuscript.”

“What if he does have Shay?”

“What can it matter? If he offers you Shay then the boy has either said nothing or knows nothing. If the latter then why not leave him? If the former, why would he be more likely to talk? Take him or don’t take him. In any case, you must go. Negotiate. Agree to any terms that do not include the box. Kenway will not keep Liam forever, he is only waiting for an excuse to have him killed, they have been enemies for years. No, we must protect Liam. When Liam is back, we can delay. Eventually, the British will move their troops out of New York and then the Templars will not be such a threat.”

I am not sure Chevalier is completely right. He would like to erase Shay’s very existence from his mind and the collective mind of the Brotherhood, but that will not undo any of the damage the boy has done nor prevent any more. He has already done us so much wrong through his ignorance and stubbornness, what more might he do if he starts doing so intentionally? No, better to have him here where we can watch him. Or gone altogether.

But Chevalier is not completely wrong. The British do not know of the Brotherhood, they have no reason to make a move against us, but Kenway is just waiting for us to give them one.

I cannot risk the homestead but Chevalier is right, we must have Liam back.

As I accompany him outside, through the kitchens and the back door out onto the cliff overlooking the _Gerfaut_ , he asks about the upcoming meeting with Kenway, where and when it is and what other arrangements we agreed on.

“Should I stay? Who will you take with you?”

“Kesegowaase has agreed to accompany me. Kenway has said I will only be allowed to bring one person to accompany me into the barracks.”

Chevalier nods but he must see as well as I do that I have no other choice. He himself will leave within the hour on urgent business with Le Chasseur. I cannot bring Hope so who else is there?

Chevalier and I say our farewells and he makes his way back to his ship.

The day is mild so I decide to walk while the light holds.

The homestead still bears many of the scars of the last few months. Here a venerable old oak felled by mortar fire, there one of the cottages with a third of its roof stove in or missing. And still all the snow that lies around everywhere, covering every track and trail, making our surroundings almost unrecognisable.

The repairs have been going well and though the weather has stayed cold we have not had another blizzard like the one that so ravaged our settlement. The smallest and fastest of Chevalier’s ships have been constantly bringing food and building materials and it has made me realise that we are not self-sufficient. When Liam is back we’ll discuss building a mill, a forge, and perhaps even a few farms, to start with. I have always thought of this place as a vast training ground for my assassins, but perhaps we need to build up a greater sense of community. We cannot know when another blow like this one will fall upon us again.

There is Kesegowaase, demonstrating how to lash logs together most securely. He has done the most to rebuild the homestead, taking on roles that were usually Liam’s, staying to help even though he has work to do elsewhere.

“Mentor.”

As I approach them, they all stop working and stand at attention, quiet and anxious.

Ordinarily Liam would accompany me on a tour of the property and because he has such a rapport with our men, his presence takes away some of the formality of mine. And I suppose they are not so used to seeing me as often anymore since in the last few months I have spent much of my time researching the various Pieces of Eden, in preparation of retrieving one.

Ordinarily Liam would have accompanied me to the meeting with Kenway, a large, imposing presence at my shoulder, one step behind me.

Kesegowaase stands there, still lashing logs together, quiet and patient as he waits for his students to return their attention to him. None of the smiles, encouragement and praise they would have had from Liam.

With Liam gone, Kesegowaase has taken on the task of heading the repair works and he has done well, but after all, he has always been strong and resourceful, a true survivor - that is why Liam and I recruited him.

Kesegowaase is even bigger than Liam and his presence will be just as imposing but all the same it will be different, just as Kesegowaase’s role in the Brotherhood is different. Kesegowaase believes in the Creed as deeply as Liam does but he is most interested in the practical side of it - he helps train our novices, he has established ties with the native people that stretches from the furthest reaches of Quebec almost to the Spanish dominions, he helps the French and fights the British to protect his peoples’ land. However, beyond that the Brotherhood barely interests him - he is indifferent to Precursor technology and the Pieces of Eden, if asked his opinion about broader decisions concerning the Brotherhood, he gives it but that too with indifference. Even this decision concerning Liam and Shay he has left up to Chevalier, Hope and me, content to obey and comply with whatever choice we make.

Hope too is doing her part to help.

There she is now directing the division of firewood and provisions to the various cottages to ensure that each group has what they need. When she first came to us she was trained by both Liam and Kesegowaase in free climbing, shooting, and all the other skills one needs to survive in the frontier but she has no true instinct or taste for it. Hope is a city-dweller through and through, her place is in New York where she can infiltrate the underground and wait for a tremor of information to be analysed and acted upon.

She has remained here in part because the snow has made the voyage to New York hazardous and also because we are all reluctant to risk her in New York until we have reliable information about the situation there. Losing Fort Arsenal was a shock - it was our most heavily fortified base and yet it was taken.

This setback has upset her but perhaps not as much as the prospect of losing Liam.

We are all still shocked at his capture.

Completing my circuit around the house, I find myself back near the cliffs.

The sun has melted just enough snow that the top arch of Abigail’s tombstone has blossomed out of the accumulation of snow that covers both graves and the single pine behind them.

What would she think of all this? We both worked so hard together to build this homestead and ever since her death the heart has gone out of it and of me.

What would she advise now?

When Liam first asked permission to bring Shay Cormac here Abigail encouraged me to accept. Always generous-hearted, I suppose she wanted to believe that Shay would be safe here and that he and Liam would find a way to be happy, although she would perhaps not have been so supportive if Hope had not come to her and convinced her it would be the best course for all concerned.

But is this all the inevitable consequence of having welcomed Shay Cormac here all those years ago? Or is it, as Liam, believes, the result of a much smaller mistake?

Liam wanted to go to Lisbon with Shay and see the whole mission through to its conclusion and perhaps I should have let him - he had earned the right to claim the relic as much as Shay had.

But Shay still had to prove himself to earn the title of Master Assassin. Everything he’d ever done was done in Liam’s shadow and the growing rumblings of favouritism would have been impossible to suppress if he’d been made Master Assassin.

There was also Kesegowaase to think about. Wardrop was always his enemy and after everything that had passed between them the honour of killing him should have gone to Kesegowaase - I robbed him of that kill when I tasked Shay with it. It seemed a small compensation to send Liam, the first of our Brothers, with Kesegowaase when he went out to Pennsylvania to organise the native resistance against the British and the colonists taking over native land - the very same thing that Kesegowaase had tried to stop Wardrop from doing. After the years-long rift between Liam and Kesegowaase, I’d hope this time spent together working on a common goal of such importance would help bring them back together - they who were once so close.

All these things, they seemed so important at the time. Now I can only hope we will not have to dig a third grave near this lone pine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * The British took Fort Beauséjour in June 1755. 
> 
> ** Acadians: inhabitants of Acadia, in Nova Scotia. Mostly French-aligned, they, broadly, refused to sign their allegiance to Britain. 
> 
> *** Mi’kmaq: another Algonquian-speaking people, mostly French-aligned. As I understand it, Mi'kmaw is the adjective form. 
> 
> As always, questions and comments welcome! <3


	18. Shay | Signals at Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Unable to keep their hands off each other any longer, Shay and Haytham have a little fun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shay and Haytham have a bit of fun with one of Haytham's toys (it has sentimental value, it's totally respectable XD).

**SHAY**

_Kenway House, New York, December 1755_

“How are you enjoying the books?”

After glancing up at Master Kenway, smiling at me from his usual armchair, his feet on the bed, I look down at the page I was studying, an illustration of Lord Anson’s signals for setting a course.

A messenger arrived yesterday morning with a tabletop book trough full of books and monographs from Captain Cook’s own collection and a few reference volumes for me to keep - a new copy of the _Articles of War_ and the one I’m looking at now, the _Sailing and Fighting Instructions_.

The _Morrigan_ is not a Navy ship, she’s a hired vessel, but Cook said that since sooner or later we’d be bound to find ourselves in manoeuvres with Navy ships, the crew and I should probably start studying.

After Master Kenway, Barrington, Doctor Meadows and everyone here, now Captain Cook too - they’ve all been so good to me. Thought Master Kenway must have been exaggerating when he said the Royal Navy were happy to pardon me and that he must have bargained very hard to get me the _Morrigan_ back and everything else on top. But Captain Cook has been nothing but kind and generous - even though he must know that I was a pirate and that I sank and took British ships. And they must trust Master Kenway completely to have given me a copy of their signal book. What Chevalier wouldn’t give for just a few choice pages - if he knew their signal codes he could he could fool any British ship afloat by pretending to be one of them until his men are halfway up the side with their boarding axes between their teeth.

It’s humbling. Many of my old allies will be my enemies now - every familiar ship in Chevalier’s fleet will be out to sink us - and the crew and me will have to learn plenty of new skills and become more disciplined to get up to the Navy’s level. But there’s so much freedom as well. I don’t work for the Navy, I don’t even work for the Templars yet. Master Kenway has started negotiating contracts with the East India Company who want to hire the _Morrigan_ , her guns and fighting crew, to protect their merchantmen from pirates going down to the West Indies. Can’t help feeling my father would’ve been proud of me working with the Company.

Just have to make sure I don’t disappoint anyone.

“They’re… incredible. The _Morrigan_ has mostly sailed alone, we’ve never really needed to coordinate action with other ships, I hadn’t really seen it done since I was on the _Gerfaut_ and I’ve never done it as a captain. It’s… well, exciting.”

“James Cook seems very keen to carry you off exploring, hawkling. Have you looked into the things on cartography? Do you think you can manage it?”

“Aye, well, we don’t usually use dead reckoning much since we usually sail in sight of land and I haven’t really bothered with all the calculations for Mercator projections since I was on my father’s ship, but it’ll come back to me. I’ve got a few bits of paper on hydrography Captain Cook might like, Jones’ll bring them next time he’s over here. We get them out of Quebec, translated from French. They’re a bit better than what Cook’s got.”

“How very thoughtful of you, Shay, I’m sure he’ll appreciate that. He’s quite pleased with you. And the _Morrigan_.”

Master Kenway’s smiling, he’s quite pleased with me too.

Fortune yawns and rearranges herself along me, stretching out her legs and resting her tiny paws against the inside of my elbow, and when I move to pet her, Luck makes another dive for my hand.

“That’s the third time he’s tried to eat your ring in the past hour.”

“Aye, must’ve been a magpie in a previous life.”

“Mmm, or a jackdaw.”

“Probably shouldn’t sleep with it anyway - the ring, I mean.”

“Perhaps not, although the same likely applies to the dogs.”

He nudges my blanket-covered foot with his bare one and Luck immediately pounces onto it, settling down as he holds it between his paws, looking very proud.

“They’re very soft, aren’t they?”

He moves his toes, smiling as Luck stops and starts and scrambles to catch them, and for a while his papers sit in his lap, forgotten.

On one of those sheets of paper there’s a watercolour sketch of Liam. It’s been all the way to Berks County in Pennsylvania and then back again. At least three of the other sheets came back with it and were signed by people who swear they recognise Liam as one of the men who led the Lenape charge against the Pennsylvania settlers. They probably would have recognised Kesegowaase too if they’d been shown a sketch of him - but then maybe not, a tall Irishman stands out among natives but most people can’t tell the Abenaki from the Mohawk. I know those papers are enough to get Liam hanged and I also know that Master Kenway hasn’t given them to Governor Hardy. Yet.

“Is it tomorrow…?”

Master Kenway glances up at me, still smiling but now his eyes are cool.

“Yes.”

He’s waiting - waiting for me to ask him to spare Liam no matter what, to just spare him and let him go. Would he do it?

Sometimes the only thing in the world I want is for Liam to be safe, that I would give my life for his - I came so close to losing it I’m still not as attached to it as I once was. I wish I could undo it all and go back to the beginning when we met in New York and redo it all - if I hadn’t gone to the homestead we could have stayed friends and wouldn’t have become enemies. Aye, Liam will never forgive me for this.

I can’t ask Master Kenway to spare Liam. Looking at him now, I think he would do it, even after all he’s already done for me and what Liam has done to him.

Never deserved any of this.

None of the people who died in Lisbon were given a second chance, Mackandal’s man wasn’t either, and I don’t deserve mine, I did nothing for it. Never deserved to have the _Morrigan_ given back to me after I left her to go to Lisbon and abandoned her at the homestead. And I never deserved Master Kenway - even without all the rest of it, the house, the food, the dogs, the scalding-hot baths, I never did anything to deserve him and it will kill me if he ever regrets this.

Never should have agree to Master Kenway’s offer. I did it because I’m weak, because I did want to stay, because there’s nothin’ I wouldn’t do to have the _Morrigan_ back, and because, just now, I can’t imagine ever livin’ without _him_. But I shouldn’t have agreed. It was selfish. It was the best thing for me but not for Master Kenway - he could have married anyone he wanted, he shouldn’t have to settle for a wanted criminal that nobody sees any worth in but him. He shouldn’t have to spend the rest of his life explaining his choice.

What about this Charles Lee? Gist and Weeks wouldn’t say much about him. Weeks said he’s a soldier, from a good family, Master Kenway’s right hand in the Order and the person he’s put in charge of Templar operations in Boston. The same age as me and the very first person Master Kenway inducted into the Order when he arrived in the Colonies. Gist just said that he probably wouldn’t like me but not to let it bother me.

But it does bother me.

If I’d brought more to Master Kenway then I could have asked for Liam’s safety, but I brought him nothing.

“Will this ruin things between us, Shay? Tell me the truth. Tell me now before it’s too late.”

No. It’ll be hard on me but it won’t ruin anything, I won’t let it. I have to let Liam and the others go, they’re not my life anymore. Master Kenway is, and looking at him now, I try to imagine what he will look like to me tomorrow, if he has signed Liam’s death warrant.

“No. No, it won’t.”

“You’re sure? I don’t want you to have to live regretting something I did. Something _this_ important to you.”

“No… I’m sure. Are you sure? You won’t regret… this? Us?”

He reaches out to brush back my hair and now the smile is back in his eyes.

“I don’t think we’re destined to have so exciting a relationship, Shay - no regrets, no violent disagreements, no jealous accusations, no throwing crockery at each other. Just years and years of this. Quite dull, really. I hope you don’t mind.”

Three, five, seven, nine lifetimes of this wouldn’t be enough.

As he takes my hand, Luck pounces again.

“You may have to choose between your hand and your dog, hawkling. Shall we put the ring somewhere safe for tonight? Tomorrow we’ll see if this pup can be taught some respect.”

“Aye. Barrington’s been helping me train them. But they like to play.”

“Mmm.”

Master Kenway eases the wedding band off his finger where he wears it stacked with his Templar ring - a plain silver band - and after slipping off my ring, replaces it with his.

“I should have thought to have a simpler one made for you for when you’re on the _Morrigan_ or working. I’ll take care of it tomorrow.”

Then he kisses my finger, just above the ring, before mouthing the knuckle, and everything inside me melts and glows with wanting him. It was a lifetime ago that we were together, I’ve died and come back to life again since and it already feels like I’ve already had to go another lifetime without him.

“I miss you.”

He watches me a moment.

I want him and that he wants me but I’m still too weak and a shock of cold goes through me at the thought that I’m already disappointing him.

But then he leans over and gently, so gently, presses his mouth onto mine, slow, unhurried, _possessive_ , lips moving over mine, pressing, rubbing, catching mine, then his tongue, just the tip of it, flicking, dipping, taking, _teasing_ and giving, then deeper until it rubs and pushes against mine, and all the time, my fingers are getting more tangled in his hair.

Then he pulls away and mouths his way to my jaw and along it, down my throat to the hollow at the base of it, while he runs his hands over my chest lightly, one of his thumbs brushing over my nipple just before he covers it with his mouth, through the thin cotton, and a lick of ice shoots through my veins as the wetness grows then he sucks hard before drawing it into his mouth again and biting, raking his teeth from the base to the tip.

“Haytham!”

A soft whimper and he pulls away and we both look at Fortune and Luck who are both sitting up on the bed, watching us, heads tilted.

Then Master Kenway gives me a long look.

“It you take them to their basket by the fire and tell them to stay, they’ll stay. Barrington taught them - says you just have to say it like you mean it.”

“Oh, I’ll mean it. Come along, you two.”

He herds them both off and tells them very firmly to _stay_ , then disappears into his dressing room, returning with a something velvet-wrapped in his hands and giving the pups a warning look as he passes, pausing to lock the bedroom door and blow out all the candles so only the ones near the bed are left, along with the light of the fire.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, he puts the velvet pouch on my lap and lifts the flap.

“Look familiar?”

Aye, it does.

He picks it up.

“It was modelled after me and it was used for my initiation.”

“It’s quite a bit smaller than you are.”

That might have sounded more huffy than I meant it because he laughs.

“Well, I was only fifteen or so at the time!”

After he kisses me hard, I touch the ivory shaft still in is hand.

“Do you want to…?”

“No, hawkling, you’re not strong enough and John would have my head.”

“He said you could sleep in the same bed as me now, if you wanted.”

“I do very much want to and I will. But I thought you might like to try it on me, hmm?”

_What?_

“You?”

“Yes. It’s been a long while since I’ve done this sort of thing but I expect I can manage it without too much difficulty. And as you say, it’s not as large as it could be. Will you indulge me, hawkling?”

_Indulge him?_

He’s smiling and his voice is so warm and reassuring, and I just want to be with him any way I can.

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t. I’ll show you.”

So I nod.

“Good.”

Reaching into the drawer of his bedside table, he pulls out the small vial and tosses it onto the bed by me, then unbuttons and pulls off his breeches, undressing until he’s in his nightshirt. He throws back the blankets and lies down beside me, drawing the curtains before pulling me close and I can’t resist pressing a few kisses onto his chest too, the first time I’ve felt his body beneath my lips in what feels like forever.

I watch, my head resting on his shoulder, as he pours a little oil from the vial into my hand and rubs it all over our fingers. I reach down to stroke his knot and squeeze it gently before he takes my hand and presses it to himself, soon slippery with the oil on our skin. Them he slicks the ivory with the oil and presses it into my hand, guiding both between his raised knees and parted thighs while I lean onto his chest, watching him closely.

“Haytham, how…?”

“Along the crease, Shay, and when you feel it catch - there - now slowly press up, don’t rush it, keep pressing, can you feel how it opens? There. Good, just like that. Keep your hand here, just behind the head, and your thumb just so, so you can keep it from going in too quickly - ah! There. Very good. Just give me a moment.”

God, the look on his face, smiling and pleased and proud and _happy_ , never taking his eyes off mine. The hand holding me against him slips down my back, into my trousers and settles over my arse, and when his finger touches me there I realise I’m wet.

“Go on, Shay, push it in. But slowly, let me get used to it.”

I do and beneath my hand I can feel the muscles of his stomach tense as I push it in deeper then carefully start drawing it out, and when he gasps quietly, his lips parting, I bite his mouth and he bites me back.

“Would you like to take me like this someday, Shay?”

His voice is so low and deep and rougher than I’ve ever heard it and behind my eyelids I see a flash of red.

_Would I? Would he really let me?_

The way he looks at me, I know he would and he would let himself enjoy it. He would teach me how the way he’s teaching me now, so I wouldn’t hurt him, and I could watch him beneath me like this, arching up as I bury myself inside him, pushing into him.

“Aye.”

And now he looks up at me, fierce and happy, and quickly moves up to kiss me, biting my bottom lip sharply. Pushing him back onto the pillows, I kiss him hard and deep as I continue to slowly move the shaft inside him, while his finger moves, slipping in my wetness.

I can feel the tension building up inside him and I pull away to look down at him, in his eyes while he stares through mine, straight into my soul, to whatever is at the very centre of me.

“You’re mine, Shay.”

Even like this, beneath me and breathless, he still has a hold on me and I’m his as completely as if he were the one taking me and I was full of him - I miss being full of him, of being so close to him and so _possessed_ by him that I’m no my own person anymore. A part of me still feels it, that I’m no longer whole without him.

“Aye.”

His hand on mine becomes more insistent and we push and pull the shaft more quickly before finally pushing it in deep and leaving it there and as he comes I watch him, sometimes leaning in to steal a silent gasp with a kiss.

Aye. I’m all his, every part of me. But some part of him is mine too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> General note on signals:  
> Signal flags and combinations of flags were used to quickly send messages and instructions between ships. There were general codes used in the normal course of communication between ships but each country also had its own signal codes (particularly in wartime) so their ships could recognise each other and be able to communicate in secret. Having the codes meant you could successfully reply to any secret signal so the signal code would be one of the first things a captain would send to the bottom of the sea if he thought his ship was about to be captured. In an earlier chapter, James Cook mentions they didn't find any important papers on the Alcide and Lys - they would have been looking for signal codes.


	19. Achilles | The Dilemma & the Cost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Haytham and Achilles finally meet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it, boys and girls, the last chapter of Part II!
> 
> I'll be taking a one or two week break to plan and start drafting the next part and I'll post any notices or ETAs in the series' notes section. 
> 
> Research notes will be posted on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/quillsatdawn)  
> and if anyone without an ao3 account wants to be notified when the next chapter is posted, just leave a comment ("mail me, please" or something along those lines) and I'll reply when I post. <3

**ACHILLES**

_Fort George, New York, December 1755_

 

“Ah, you’re here. Come, take a seat.”

Kenway himself is already seated at the elegant mahogany tea table by a fireplace and does not stand, instead setting down his teacup and pouring tea into the other teacup of the obviously expensive set that is laid out.

“Milk? Sugar?”

“No, thank you.”

He sets the teacup and saucer down before me then leans back in his armchair as I lower myself onto the other.

“Isn’t this nice? The governor was kind enough to allow me the use of one of his drawing-rooms. I thought it might be easier if we met one neutral ground.”

_Neutral ground._

Fort George - the governor’s own fortified habitation, partway between the arsenal and the barracks, armed soldiers for half a mile at least in every direction that does not give onto the sea. Even when the last missive from the Templar Grand Master was put into my hands just a few days ago, this is the last place I had expected to find myself today. Kesegowaase, standing watch, quiet and reserved, with his back to the wall, must feel as out-of-place as I do.

Against the wall opposite Kesegowaase stands the jäger who came to meet us at the checkpoint, but only after the guards there had already stopped us, looking at us suspiciously even after they found my name on their list of authorised guests. That would not have happened with Liam.

Just the four of us. Not even the shadow of another Templar.

“I hope your trip down wasn’t made too difficult by all the snow still about. This weather!”

“One gets used to it.”

If I can get used to it even having been born and raised in the Caribbean, then an Englishman born of a Welshman should acclimatise soon enough.

“I suppose so. But then I haven’t been in the colonies as long as you have.”

This false affability is a show of strength and a pretence. Kenway is no happier to meet with me than I am to meet with him. He wants something from me and all of this, the location, the hospitality, the casual atmosphere, even the coat of arms engraved into the escutcheon on the sugar tongs, they are all there to remind me that even with a laissez-passer I was only allowed through after the intervention of that jäger - an _army_ man, not a Templar, because Kenway’s so implicated with the reigning powers that be that he may dispose of their resources of men, and means and sugar tongs as if they were his own.

Barely the length of a table between Kenway and I. It would not be difficult to end this and that jäger would not last a minute against Kesegowaase but no doubt we would no more easily be allowed out than we would in and there are men in uniform with pistols at the ready just outside the door. And Liam. Where would all that leave Liam?

“Before we start, you said Liam is alive and well. I would like to see that with my own eyes, as a show of good faith.”

He grimaces slightly then nods long-sufferingly.

“I thought you might but I hope, Achilles, that you’ll start showing me some good faith too.”

He nods at the jäger who goes to the window and waves, signalling someone below. Kenway stands, motioning me to do the same, and strolls over to the window. I can just make out a moving form.

“Here, use my opera glass.”

He offers me the use of a small, mother-of-pearl and brass telescope and through it I can clearly make out Liam, shackled and chained like a common slave.

“Still in fine fighting form, as you can see. A little too fine, in fact - I think his hosts have started to tire of him.”

Yes, I can see the rage and the urgency in Liam’s gaze, he’s barely struggling, his eyes seem to concentrate all his energies. He’s trying to warn me of something, he and I have always understood each other so well.

“He seems well.”

“We’ve done our best for him.”

“Liam was with some comrades at the time he was captured. I wonder, do you have any of the others who were with him?”

“Two of them - I’ve forgotten their names…”

“Thompson and Caraway, sir.”

“Yes, thank you. Thompson and Caraway had a few stolen items among their belongings along with unauthorised weapons. I’m afraid they were sentenced to hard labour and sent up north.”

Kenway goes to stand before the fire, his hands clasped together behind his back.

“Shay Cormac is under my protection and can form no part of this agreement.”

_Ah, so that is what Liam was trying to tell me._

“You have him?”

“I do but it makes no difference for the purposes of these negotiations.”

“Shay Cormac is Liam’s intended, this is highly irregular…”

“He no longer wishes to be, he releases Liam O’Brien from any obligation. Again, Achilles, Shay Cormac has placed himself under my protection, he cannot be part of these negotiations.”

“Forgive me but am I to take your word for this? Is Liam? They are childhood friends, they were to be married!”

“I told you O’Brien would not be harmed - there he is, unharmed. You will have to take my word regarding Shay.”

“Try to understand Liam’s feelings, if he could speak with Shay, say his goodbyes and get some closure… It might be easier for him to accept. After all, you and he are enemies, how can he believe that Shay is staying with you willingly unless he hears it from Shay’s own mouth?”

For a moment, Kenway is quiet.

“Whatever agreement we come to, Achilles, I expect _you_ to make sure your people keep to it, Liam O’Brien included. O’Brien’s feelings are no concern and no responsibility of mine.”

“What would it cost you to let Liam see him for a moment?”

He sighs.

“So I should bring you to my house and let you study its people, its strengths and weaknesses so you may better attack it in future?”

I cannot deny that if I thought we could successfully attack his home and base of operations then we would. Nor can I promise that we will not try if the opportunity arises.

“That is not the purpose and I do not insist on it. If you had Shay brought here that would be acceptable.”

“Unfortunately, that would not be acceptable to his physician. Shay is still very delicate, he’s only allowed two half-hours outdoor each day. He cannot be made to travel the length of the city for fives minutes of tearful goodbyes.” 

“Why would he be upset if he has consented to this situation? How can a few moments’ explanations hurt him?”

Kenway sighs again, not bothering to hide his exasperation.

“Fine. I won’t waste another day on this. Shay cannot be moved but if O’Brien and - Kesegowaase, was it? - and you agree to be brought to my house under escort you may see him. However, since I can’t be sure there will be no recriminations or accusations, I cannot allow you to speak with him.”

I glance at Kesegowaase but he is still as a statue.

“Very well.”

The voyage to Kenway’s place involves blindfolding the three of us and one of his grooms takes over our coach while we are locked inside, with an escort and heavily guarded.

When we arrive, it takes a moment to disembark Liam who has been restrained and shackled like an unruly bear.

Kenway’s butler greets him and his gaze sails over us as if we were less welcome than wet umbrellas.

“Master Cormac is putting one of the thoroughbreds through its paces,” he tells his master while taking his hat and cloak, and behind me I can hear the rattle of Liam’s chains.

“Please ask him to join us in the library at his earliest convenience.”

“Shall I tell him you have company?”

“No, thank you, Barrington, that won’t be be necessary.”

That is something I insisted on and that caused another sigh from Kenway but we will only have a moment to read Shay’s reaction so we cannot have him forewarned of our coming.

The jäger seems as much at home here as Kenway did at the governor’s house and as he leads us to the library he posts his redcoats along the way, leaving the last couple just outside the door while he comes in with us, staying near the door while the rest of us move towards the table by the window.

Liam’s shackles have been so weighted that he can barely lift his feet and so he stands a small distance away from me, under the watchful eye of the armed jäger, having been warned not to move and to keep quiet. Kesegowaase is standing to my side and seems more indifferent than Kenway’s jäger.

This library is almost the size of my house at the homestead and there are Templar crosses hidden away everywhere we look as if to symbolise how deeply Kenway and his have taken root here.

“How did Shay come to be here?”

“I didn’t think a cell in the barracks was any place to leave an omega - Assassin or not.”

“So you brought an Assassin into your house out of kindness? Despite the risk?”

“If you had seen the state he was in you would know he posed no sort of danger to me. Indeed, you must have known something of his condition since some of his most serious injuries are several months old. I don’t know what possessed you - nor you, O’Brien - to put him back in the field. I cannot account for it at all. As for my taking him in… Shay and I came to a private agreement.”

“What kind of agreement?”

Kenway moves his gaze from Liam back to me.

“I expect he’s not your taste, but surely even you can see that Shay is attractive.”

_No… Can he be serious?_

The question is already forming in my mouth when we hear the sound of irregular footfalls and the next moment the door opens and Shay steps in.

“Master Kenway-?”

I had expected Shay to use his vision but from the way he stops in shock at seeing Liam he has had no advance warning of our presence and his expression instantly shutters into cold formality.

“Come, Shay.”

Leaning slightly on his cane, Shay has to cross the length of the room to go and stand by Kenway, quiet and obedient.

I can hear Liam bite back a comment.

Shay is unrecognisable. Dressed in a slim-fitting riding habit, cravat tied high and a red sash wound snug about his hips, booted and with his black leather riding crop in his hand, he looks every inch to the manor born.

Liam’s face is a picture of disgust and hatred and even Kesegowaase looks grim. I cannot blame them. Whatever we thought of Shay, I do not think any of us expected him to be capable of this.

“Apologies for taking you from your sport, Shay, but Masters Davenport and O’Brian refused to even open negotiations until they saw with their own eyes that I had done you no harm. I trust they are now satisfied, you may go back to what you were doing.”

“Wait! I need a word with Shay. He’s my intended and I deserve an explanation.”

“I’m not sure you deserve anything from the man you slandered as you did, Master O’Brian.”

I am not sure what he means by that but from the look on Shay’s face and the way Liam lowers his gaze slightly, they both know exactly what it means.

There is no time for any more questions or explanations, however, because now Kenway nods at Shay.

“Go on, Shay.”

A quick bow to Kenway - something I have never seen him do - and he disappears through a side door.

“I think I’ve more than kept my end of the bargain, Master Davenport. Perhaps we could now address the real purpose of this meeting?”

He does not wait for an answer before signalling the jäger who goes to the door and calls in some of his men and even then it takes them over five minutes to move Liam out of the room. Kenway glances at Kesegowaase and after a nod from me he leaves us too.

He sits at his table and motions for me to do the same and for a while we look at each other across it.

_How much does he know? How has Shay paid for the comfort and luxury he now lives in?_

“I think we’ve wasted enough time on this farce, Achilles, so I’ll come straight to the point. What I want is a truce between Templars and Assassins for the next six months and for the duration of the war if it breaks out in that time. So it may be a question of months or it may be a question of years, you’ll just have to take the uncertainty into the bargain. Now, I don’t expect you to all sit around a fire inventing limericks and roasting squirrels for years on end - if you decide to side with the French then do what you must. But I want no attacks against this house, no targeted attacks against my people or their interests outside of the context of war.”

_What is he really asking for? What does he hope to gain by stalling us for a few months? What is he planning?_

“Is that all?”

He holds my gaze a moment with his cold eyes.

“What were you expecting? Do you have a better offer?”

_What does he mean by that? Does he have the manuscript? Does he know we have the box?_

“I suppose I was expecting you to ask me to pay a far higher price for Liam. There may not be a war at all, many people are still actively trying to prevent one — as you yourself are, I believe. Will you still be satisfied if things return to the way they are in six month’s time?”

“Yes, I’m prepared to take the risk if you’re prepared to take the risk of war lasting three or four years, perhaps more. But you must keep to the terms and ensure all your people do too — included that hot-head, O’Brien. If I ever have to spring away from one of your jack-in-the-box hay carts the deal will be off with immediate effect and only the most cursory notification.”

_Why is he asking for this? He could ask for anything. Why does he not just ask for the Box? Surely he thinks Liam is worth that to me?_

Perhaps he really does not know about the Box or perhaps he has miscalculated. Perhaps Shay did lose the Manuscript and has feigned to know nothing.

Whatever the reason, I can make no better offer than this and in many ways it is a far better outcome than any I had expected.

“I think this might be acceptable but I would like Shay returned to us with Liam. He is of no real importance to you and keeping him will just seem spiteful.”

“Shay is non-negotiable, Achilles.”

“I just do not see how any of us can believe he is staying of his own accord. Shay is an Assassin. His ties to Liam go back to their infancy. Why would he change his allegiances so completely unless he was pressured to?”

“Achilles, what there is between Shay and I is personal. I find myself well enough paid by what he gives me to not feel the need to press him for information about your humanitarian convoys to Saint Domingue or your supposedly secret ties with the French authorities since I could have had those from Liam O’Brien, who must know a great deal more than Shay does.”

_Ah. Of course he must have realised Shay is not a Master Assassin._

“All the more reason. If Shay means nothing, then why not return him. He means something to us.”

Kenway is silent for a long while then pushes his chair back and stands, then walks over to the window, putting his hands behind his back and locking them together.

“Shay is my mate. We have not made a public announcement yet because - well, you’ve seen him - Shay is not well enough for formal entertaining or enduring endless waves of well-wishers. I also thought it might be easier on Liam O’Brien if he heard it from you. However, I expect to publish an announcement in the coming week.”

_Married? To Shay? A Templar Grand Master? Can this be?_

So Shay must have given Kenway the manuscript. Why else would Kenway give him this kind of protection?

“If it has not been announced then it can be annulled… He and Liam are intended…”

“It cannot be annulled. Shay may already be carrying my son. No judge would ever separate an alpha from his mate and child, not even one who may have been pre-contracted to another alpha. Especially not when they had been intended for more than _seven_ years. O’Brien had his chance. Any attempt to hold onto Shay by legal means will only be an embarrassment.”

_Shay? Pregnant? After all these years? Impossible._

He pauses and turns to me slightly.

“Any attempt to take him by any other means may be quite costly.”

_Criminal conversation._

Even if he were not pregnant, the mate of a man as powerful and wealthy as Haytham Kenway is would be worth a few thousand pounds. Kenway would only have to claim that Liam tried to seduce Shay away from him. As a matter of fact, Liam being here under his roof against his wishes would be grounds enough since I am sure that his jäger and all of his people would be prepared to swear to whatever story he made up.

“You must give him up, Achilles, and you must convince O’Brien to as well.”

He returns to the table to pick up the papers stacked on the corner of the desk and leans over the desk to put them before me.

“We’ve come by a certain amount of evidence implicating Liam O’Brien in a particularly vicious attack against British settlers in Pennsylvania.”

Leafing through the pages, I see that he is telling the truth. The British will never forgive this. Kenway will hold Liam’s life in his hands for the rest of his life.

“I am not returning O’Brien to you because I have no other choice or because I do not have the means to be rid of him. I do it because I want to prove to you that I _am_ acting in good faith, because I want to offer you something in return for what I ask, not force your hand. But cross me on this, Achilles, and I will hand copies of these papers over to the governors of Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania - Liam O’Brien will be a wanted man in all thirteen colonies soon after and when they come looking for him, your cosy homestead will be overrun by three colonial militias and the British army. And I expect that even if they don’t find him they will find enough to consider the expedition worthwhile.”

He leans back in his chair and waves a careless hand at me. 

"You may keep those. I have copies." 

The one thing I am sure of is that agreeing to this deal would mean giving up any attempt to take the Manuscript back from Kenway if he has it. But not agreeing to it means Liam’s death - his immediate death, since Kenway has the means to obtain it and is not fool enough to give us time to attempt a rescue.

_What choice do I have?_

* * *

_\- Of Dilemmas & their Cost | End of Part II -_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with this chapter we've hit the 110'000 word mark, which means you could have read a real work of historical fiction in the same time - so I really appreciate you reading this instead! XD 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed it and that you'll be back for the next 110'000 words! <3


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